July 1, 1864] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



MANUFACTURE OF PAPER-HANGINGS. 531 



these restrictions was to drive the trade over to France ; and about 1780 

 the manufacture of paper-haugings passed from England into France. 

 Several large factories were opened at Paris and Lyons ; but the chief 

 part of this important manufacture was soon monopolised by Paris, 

 which still retains a leading position in this respect, followed by the 

 example of London. What was needed to develop this industry, and 

 what it now possesses, was web paper. Before the inventions of M. 

 Didot, of Paris, the improvements made by Mr. Donkin, of London, and 

 the complete patent confirmed to Messrs. Fourdrinier in 1807 (for fifteen 

 years), enabled the manufacturers to obtain a machine-made paper of 

 any length and width. The enormous advantage of this improvement 

 will be at once understood when it is considered that before the intro- 

 duction of web paper the dimensions of the paper employed were 

 limited to hand specimens executed in moulds of certain sizes or sheets, 

 and in order to print a piece of paper-hanging twelve yards long, the 

 manufacturer was compelled to stick together sixteen or eighteen sheets. 

 The joinings of so many pieces were a manifest blemish in the work, 

 not to speak of the great increase of the labour that came of this 

 method. 



Germany began the manufacture of paper-hangings on a limited 

 scale, and, later than France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland 

 followed on a still smaller scale. Austria and Kussia have severally 

 taken up the same occupation under the auspices of their Govern- 

 ments. 



In 1827, there were in Paris seventy-two large manufactories of 

 paper-hangings. The vast workshops employed — in preparers, chemists, 

 firemen, engravers, draughtsmen, travellers, and workpeople, young and 

 old, and of both sexes — 4,200 individuals. The value of the white paper 

 used amounted to about 193,600/., and that of the colours used to 92,600Z. 

 The exportation from Paris alone at this time was about 34,000Z. in value. 

 In an exposition of the products of French Industry which took place 

 in 1839, in Paris, M. Delicourt's panel papers and his low prices took 

 the world by storm, and in 1844, the enterprising manufacturer obtained 

 the highest reward — the gold medal. 



It is a criticism of Mr. Digby Wyatt on the artistic claims of French 

 paper-hangings .shown in 1855 in Paris, "that they are by no means all 

 that could be wished. Faultless as far as the fitting of the block im- 

 pressions over one another, as far as the perfect cleanness and precision 

 of every tone, and as far as the apparently unlimited range and brilliancy 

 of palette were concerned, the most important specimens appeared to 

 me to tend rather to the abuse of the art. The simple reason why the 

 Parisian paper-hangings were this year so generally outre and bad in 

 design, I believe to have been because they were left to painters to 

 arrange, a*nd not properly subordinated to any architectural design." 

 Mural decoration extended to every style and historical epoch is one 

 characteristic feature of French paper-hangings. Stone balustrades with 



z z 2 



