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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[October, 



and the refined faste of Athens and the talent of the first Italian artists were 

 called into requisition to furnish models from which to work these patterns ; 

 and those invaluable Cartoons of RafTaelle, at Hampton Court, show us how 

 particular they were to procure the best designs and finest specimens of art 

 to ornament the walls, a strong contrast with the character of taste of the 

 present day, which is content with the productions of inferior artists, whose 

 taste and judgment have never been properly cultivated, and, except in some 

 few instances, are totally deficient in those principles of true art, which have 

 been the study and direction of all who have arrived at excellence ; and with- 

 out a knowledge of these principles, no manufacture in which taste is required 

 will ever reach even the length of mediocrity. 



With the increased production of paper, also, came the ideaof applying it to 

 the purposes of hangings for rooms ; and though it lias only been in general 

 use for little more than a century, it is nearly two hundred years since it was 

 first applied to that purpose ; and it has been used as a substitute fur almost 

 every ether species of decoration. The varieties of subjects imitated in 

 paper hangings are very comprehensive, and successful efibrts have been 

 made to adapt it to the representation of architecture, sculpture, and paint- 

 ing, as well as arabesque designs, ornaments and flowers. At first the aim 

 seems to have been directed to imitations of tapestry, and to produce this 

 was employed a material called flock, a kind of woollen cloth chopped small 

 with a machine, strewed lightly with the finger and thumb over the paper, 

 on which a pattern had been previously dra«n with fat, oil or varnish, and 

 the different colours and tints being carefully blended, an appearance of tapes- 

 try was thus obtained. This method is said to have first originated in Eng- 

 land, and was invented by Jerome Langer, who obtained a patent for it during 

 the reign of C'harles the First, dated May the 1st. 1G34. We find, however, 

 according to an old French work, that a manufacture ot this kind was car- 

 ried on at Rouen, some 10 or 14 years previously, by a man named Francois, 

 and was succeeded by his son, who continued the business for 50 years after 

 with great success. Originally the material was of an extremely coarse 

 description, and the flock projected considerably from the paper. At Hamp- 

 ton Court specimens of the early productions may still be seen, mostly painted 

 in distemper, but the pattern can be distinctly traced. I have been enabled 

 to procure a specimen of flock paper, which I am assured is not less than 110 

 years old. In this the surface is very coarse, although a great improvement 

 upon the older fabrics. 



In the reign of Queen Anne paper hangings were largely imported from 

 China, and continue in fashion down to the present day. These hangings, 

 though the outlines may be executed with blocks or stencila, are almost 

 wholly done by hand. The colours are veiy rich and brilliant, exceeding in 

 beauty almost anything we can produce in England. 



Mr. .lackson, a manufacturer of paper hangings at Battersea, published, in 

 the year 1754, a work on the invention of printing in chiaro scuro, and the 

 application of it to the making of paper hangings, with fruits coloured 

 in illustration. This book was probably used as a sort of advertisement of 

 his omi manufacture, and contains many just and well sustained remarks, 

 showing a cultivated and properly directed taste. He purposed, instead of ad- 

 hering to the old system (for it seems that paper hangings had reached some 

 degree of perfection even then), to employ subjects of more interest than the 

 mere repetition of flowers and ornaments, which prevailed so much, that in- 

 stead of being a principal, as they were, that they should be merely an ele- 

 gant auxiliary to designs of more dignified character — as, for instance, copies 

 of the most celebrated classic subjects, statues and landscapes ; and remarks 

 that the persons who could not purchase the statues themselves might have 

 these prints in their places, and thus gratify the taste of the possessor. He 

 also proposed, instead of painting paper hangings in the ordinary way with 

 size colour, that oil should be used, and argued the great durability of oil 

 in comparison with size, and that the beauties of the colours continue as 

 long as the paper can held together, whereas, in a short time the brilliancy 

 of the other is quite lost and requires renewing. 



In speaking of the vulgar and gaudy patterns frequently selected, instead 

 of tasteful and harmonious designs, he says, persons who prefer the unmean- 

 ing papers so generally met with, to those done in this style, would prefer a 

 fan to a picture of Raffael, Carracci, Guido or Domenichino ; and those who 

 choose the C'hinese manner, ought to admire, in pursuit of that same taste, 

 the crooked, disproportioned and ugly, in preference to the straight, regu- 

 lar and beautiful, ft is by this very means of ill-judgment in furnishing 

 apartments that the true taste of the person is unthinkingly betrayed, those 

 little and seemingly distant things offer the clue which leads to discovering 

 the whole mind, and undoes, perhaps, all the character of being a true judge 

 of the polite arts, which they are so fond of establishing. It seems impossi- 

 ble that any mind truly formed can, without distaste, be capable of letting 

 such objects in upon it through the eye, where the external senses are well- 

 proportioned and just ; these monstrous objects of the external must be dis- 

 pleasing and ofl'ensive in that breast where the softer *ensations of humanity 

 are ; in a particular degree, a love of beauty generally accompanies them, and 

 the approbation of natural objects is the proof of these sensations existing in 

 an individual, as the conttaiy taste ia pf the ill formation or perversion of 



that mind which approves of preternatural appearances. There is a close 

 analogy between the love of Ijcauly in external objects, and a kind truly dis- 

 posed to the feeling of all the softer and more amiable sensations. 



The prevailing unfounded idea that the F.nglish, as a people, are inferior 

 to other nations in the talents for artistic design and invention is, I am very 

 glad to observe, being overturned by proofs that we are quite as capable, and 

 in some instances more so than the artists of other countries, of producing 

 designs of exquisite taste and workmanship, and I may here mention that the 

 encouragement given to the arts of design by the rebuilding of the Houses of 

 Parliament, is in every way praiseworthy and will give an impetus to native 

 art it has never received since the days when the royal patronage was dis- 

 played in the vsry same spot, during the reign of Henry the Third, six cen- 

 turies ago. It is sometimes necessary to bring to the recollection of the 

 cavillers at British talent that in many of the arts of design we have far out- 

 stripped our contemporary brethren on the continent. Among our early 

 Saxon progenitors we find that they attained to higher proficiency in the art 

 of M. S. illumination than any continental school. It is proved by our re- 

 cords that painting in oil was practised in England 200 years before the time 

 of Van Eyck, who is called the inventor of it, and it is well known that the 

 Frencli, until lately, were far inferior to us in ornamental work. The son of 

 Mr. Taylor, who carried on business during Mr. Jackson's time, went over to 

 France and was able to give the manufacturers there very valuable instruc- 

 tions, and he foiuid that their paper hangings were far inferior to our own 

 both in execution and beauty of design. Why, then, do we now find that we 

 are obliged to confess their superiority in this branch, when we know that 

 patterns of paper hangings (and I have myself seen them,) exist, manufactured 

 GO years ago, equal, if not superior, to those executed in France at the pre- 

 sent day. Several of the blocks used in the production I have also seen, and 

 their beautiful workmanship far exceeds tliose in use for present purposes. 

 It is true that, until within the last few years, a noxious tax, impcised during 

 the time of Queen Anne, weighed down the spirit and clogged the energies of 

 the manufacturer, but the want of a proper national school of design was the 

 grand evil, and kept in embryo the latent genius of English youth. These 

 difficulties, it is pleasing to notice, are being fast overcome ; and I hope soon 

 to find our English name, proud as we all are of it, spoken of not only as 

 retaining its ancient glory, but being as a password to all other nations for 

 all that is talented and tasteful, as well as for all that is noble and honourable. 

 About the year 1786 a Mr. Sheringham threw a new feature into the manu- 

 facture of paper hangings ; this gentleman, who had sp»nt many years on 

 the continent, returned about this time to England and estabhshed a busi- 

 ness in Great Marlborough Street. His enterprising spirit and refined taste 

 led him to engage a number of artists of first rate ability, such men as Jones, 

 Boileau, La Brie, and Fuzeli ; he was thus enabled to introduce a style of 

 decoration both unique and truly English in its character; he infused into 

 the art a style which, for beauty and grace, was not equalled before nor since 

 surpassed. Sheringham's productions were, indeed, characteristic of the true 

 principle of the art. From this establishment emanated the leading deco- 

 rators of the present day, and the first hou.ses in London built their fame 

 upon the foundation he had constructed. Sheringham was, indeed, the 

 Wedgwood of paper stainers. About this time the Messrs. Ichardts, who had 

 a manufactory at Chelsea, produced designs of most exquisite workmanship. 

 Besides the mode then generally in use, they adopted a method of applying 

 copper plates engraved to form the outline, and by an under ground of silver 

 and gold worked up by hand in varnish colours, efl'ects of the most beautiful 

 kind were obtained, and they were highly illustrative of the ability of Eng- 

 lish talent when properly applied. This well directed taste, their eager desire 

 to advance as much as possible their undertakings, their steady endeavour to 

 adopt only the most beautiful patterns, and their determination to get them 

 up in the best and most careful manner, is a lesson to som.e of our modern 

 paper stainers, which would be well for them to take to heart, and learn by 

 it that while they not only depreciate their own taste by producing, as in 

 many cases they do, patterns which they are almost ashamed of when finished, 

 but the character of the country suffers, and they lose the opportunity of im- 

 provement, while they prevent, in a great measure, the encouragement that 

 would otherwise be bestowed. 



The establishments of these gentlemen, tliough conducted with laudable spi. 

 rit and enterprise, were destined to sink as they had risen, and the spirit of 

 emulation ended with them. From that time paper staining in England kept 

 on in its trodden path, without improvement, and without advance in taste. 

 The French took up the ground that we had left, and their manufacturers were 

 everyway encouraged by the government of Napoleon, and reached that 

 standard of perfection their industry and perseverance so richly merited. 

 But it is true while speaking of the ability of the French in comparison to 

 ours, and of their continuing in the road we had prepared for them, they had 

 no such difficulties as we have to contend with, while a heavy fax was laid 

 on our productions, theirs were entirely free, while their government gave 

 them every facility, we had to fight our battles singly and at our own hazard. 

 While they had the best designs of great and illustrious men continually be- 

 fore their eyes to improve, in fact to create a taste, we were without any ad- 



