The Design, Production and Reception of Eighteenth-century Wallpaper in Britain

Taylor, Clare (2018). The Design, Production and Reception of Eighteenth-century Wallpaper in Britain. The Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1700-1950, ed. Stacey J. Pierson. Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351021784

URL: https://www.routledge.com/The-Design-Production-an...

Abstract

Wallpaper’s spread across trades, class and gender is charted in this first full length study of the material in eighteenth-century Britain. It shows not only of how wallpaper was designed and produced but also the interior spaces it occupied, from the country house to the homes of townsfolk and gentry, where wallpaper was hung by prosperous merchants as well as by aristocratic men and women. Drawing on little known examples of interior schemes and surviving wallpapers, together with unpublished evidence from archives including letters and bills, it charts wallpaper’s evolution across the century from cheap textile imitation to innovative new decorative material. Wallpaper’s growth is considered not in terms of chronology, but rather alongside the categories used by eighteenth-century tradesmen and consumers, from plains to flocks, China papers to papier mâché and from stucco papers to materials for creating print rooms. The book ends by looking at how eighteenth-century wallpaper was used to create historicist interiors in the twentieth century. Including a wide range of illustrations, many in colour, it will be of interest to historians of material culture and design, scholars of art and architectural history as well as practicing designers and those interested in the historic interior.

Viewing alternatives

Metrics

Item Actions

Export

You can export this page using these formats Digital Object Identifier - DOI