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The earliest works in the Huard Collection are dominos (papier
dominoté)—square papers that could be pasted together to form a
cohesive pattern on a wall. Production of printed papers began in
the late sixteenth century, however they may not have been popular
for covering walls until the eighteenth century. Papers typically
featured geometric or floral patterns that were drawn from textile
design. These patterns were printed in a single color or the
outline of a design was printed in black ink and colored by hand.
Domino papers were not made solely for walls but rather for a
multiplicity of uses, including covering books and lining drawers.
In the mid-eighteenth century, when single sheets of paper were
seamed together to create a continuous surface, designs expanded
into repeating motifs with multiple color printings, each
requiring a separate woodblock. In some cases the printing was
done without the application of a ground color, instead utilizing
the natural color of the paper as the background. Early wallpaper
pigments tend to be thinner and more akin to ink than paint, as
evidenced by the translucent nature of the colors. By the
mid-1700s, distemper paints, made with a base of water and animal
glue into which pigments were added, became more widely used.
These paints are characterized by their thick, opaque appearance.
The range of colors in early wallpapers was limited until the
invention of more vibrant paints, most notably created with the
addition of arsenic, developed in 1775 by chemist Carl Wilhelm
Scheele (1742–1786).
The Art of French Wallpaper
- browsing
- Domino and Early Wallpapers
The Art of French Wallpaper
The
Catalog
The RISD Museum contains one of the most significant collections of
French 18th and 19th century wallpapers in the United States with
approximately 500 wallpaper panels, borders, fragments, and design
drawings.
Here, you can browse the wallpapers by their collections, colors,
motifs, or time periods.
rest of the tombstone goes here