Revolutionary wallpaper discovered in a French church

This splendid Revolutionary wallpaper was discovered last year during renovations to the church of  Notre-Dame-de-la-Daurade  in the little town of  Tarascon-sur-Ariège  in south-west France. The church was briefly converted into a Temple of Reason in 1793. 

The paper, which is white with painted red and blue stripes, was stuck directly to the walls and lay concealed behind the retable in the choir.  One of the panels, revealed in June, is almost complete.  The local historical society has managed to unearth a register from the local commune dated 2nd December 1793 which  records the order for the church's re-dedication to "Reason, Liberty and Equality";  the local officials and National Guard  turned out for the occasion and patriots were required to decorate their doors with oak branches and tricolour flags. 

The find has attracted a lot of attention, and is likely to prove quite a conservation headache.  A figure of 20,000€ has been mooted, more if the 18th-century paintings of the retable, the original subject of the restoration,  are to be replaced whilst leaving the paper accessible.

References

 FranceInfo, "Des papiers peints de la Révolution uniques en France découverts dans une église de Tarascon-sur-Ariège",post of 11/07/2016
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/midi-pyrenees/ariege/papiers-peints-revolution-uniques-france-decouverts-eglise-tarascon-ariege-1046037.html

Video,14/07/2017: 

Tarascon-sur-Ariège : des tapisseries de la Révolution française découvertes dans l'église

   

La Dépêche, "Sous les tableaux de l'église, des traces de la Révolution"  post of 15/07/2016
http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2016/07/15/2385180-sous-tableaux-eglise-traces-revolution.html

Archives de l'Ariège, Service éducatif, presentation: 
http://archives.ariege.fr/content/download/36359/471991/file/2%20%20Retable%20Tarascon.ppt

Gallica wallpaper archive

A wallpaper-related online resource..... Between 1799 and 1803  French wallpaper manufacturers were obliged to make a legal deposit of samples from all the designs they produced. As a result the Bibliothèque nationale's Department of Prints and Photographs has a massive collection of 2250 pristine wallpaper samples from this period.  Until 2007 when they were added to the Gallica database, these were virtually impossible to study. Now they can be searched by name of manufacturer, theme or date of deposition and digital images accessed with an few mouse-clicks.

The blog cited below has loads of illustrations of the most interesting papers.  Here is just one which I  particularly liked.  It is a nice politically correct "post-Revolutionary" Jacquemart et Bénard paper of 1801 showing a departing soldier and couples dancing round a maypole.  In the maypole scene banners inscribed "Liberté" have apparently been erased and replaced by the crowns of foliage! 

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6900637z.r=+revolution.langF

References

Wallpaper on Gallica - quick link

"L’âge d’or du papier peint est dans Gallica" , post by "Peccadile" dated 27/01/2014 on Orion en aéroplane ~ Blog culturel
http://peccadille.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/papier-peint-xviiie-siecle-gallica/

Wallpaper: the career of Jean-Baptiste Réveillon

The career of Jean-Baptiste Réveillon

Evidence for the career of the wallpaper manufacturer Réveillon comes largely from two documents both from his own pen.  In both cases there is a degree of special pleading. In April 1789 Réveillon's grand house and adjacent works were one of the first victims of popular Revolutionary retribution in the so-called "Réveillon riots". The aggrieved manufacturer, cowering, ironically enough, in the shelter of the Bastille, penned a Exposé justicatif, airing his credentials as benevolent employer and man of the people. He was at pains to point out that he started out as "an ordinary worker"; at one point rescued from "suffering and starvation" only by the benevolence of a friend who sold his carpenter's tool to buy bread.  In this account Reveillon paints a picture of himself as an entrepreneur who succeeded by sheer dint of  Weberian virtue - "economy, hard-work and attention to detail" as well as "a natural talent for speculation". 

A different perspective is provided by the manuscript autobiographical dossier which accompanied Réveillon's petition in 1783 for the status of royal manufacture for his wallpaper factory and for his paper-mill at Courtalin-en-Brie.  Here Réveillon concentrates petulantly on his tribulations at the hands of various trade organisations which still restricted French industry in the closing years of the Ancien Régime. This aspect of his career and his use of royal patronage to promote in early entrepreneurship is emphasised by Réveillon 's biographer Leonard N. Rosenband and, more recently, in French studies (by Christine Velut and Alain Thillay) on economic structures in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

Trade card of Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, stationer and wall-paper merchant.
 Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection

In fact, though he may have known passing hardship, Réveillon's early career was a standard success story.  Born in 1725, son of a "bourgeois de Paris"; he completed a three-year apprenticeship as a mercier (merchant-stationer) and in 1753 set up in his own right in the rue de la Harpe, having purchased his master's business from his widow and a year married his daughter, so clearing any debts.  As a mercer he was prohibited from direct manufacture, but in 1756 he went into association with a paper manufacturer called François Rouilly to produce flocked wallpaper at L'Aigle in Normandy, outside the jurisdiction of the Paris corporations. This venture did not flourish and  by 1761 both Réveillon and Rouilly were back in the more profitable climate of  Paris.  Réveillon now sought to placate the Parisian guilds  by purchasing a licence as a copperplate printer and began manufacturing wallpaper in the rue de Reuilly in Saint-Antoine, centre of luxury trades and supposedly an area of  "free" work. His business flourished and in 1763 he was able to rent, then in 1767 to purchase, his famous and substantial premises, the folieTiton, rue de Montreuil. His number of workers expanded from an initial dozen to 350 plus in 1789; he employed "the best designers of the Gobelins" to create a renowned product, even exporting to England. In 1772 he acquired a paper mill in Courtalin-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne) which guaranteed supplies of high quality papier vélin (wove paper) which he claimed was the first manufactured in France. He lavished funds on the mill and adopted the son of the widow as his heir.


Despite the move to Saint-Antoine, Réveillon remained hampered by the power of the communautés.  As he himself emphasised, the manufacture of wallpaper was an innovative enterprise which cut across a multitude of  traditional craft boundaries.  The reorganisation of guilds after the fall of Turgot in 1776 created two powerful adversaries: the newly combined guild of "bookbinders, wallcovering and paper suppliers, and hangers" and the corporation of "painters, sculptors, gilders, and marble-cutters".  Although he enjoyed the protection of Lenoir, the Lieutenant General of Police, his premises were raided on more than on occasion and his tools seized. In 1783, however, both his paper mill and wallpaper works received the  title of royal manufacturies, and he was finally freed from guild interference. Thanks to royal protection, his business thrived. "I prospered, I was respected, I was content", wrote Réveillon plaintively  from the Bastille; ".My workers were too; they liked me. I was happy".

The Exposé justicatif provides a striking little sketch of his works which, operating outside the guild system, was already a small-scale factory. As always the striking feature is just how labour-intense these pre-industrial processes were. Wallpaper manufacture necessitated a high proportion of skilled men but all of his 350 employees were waged workers.  At the top draftsmen and engravers might earn fifty to one hundred sous a day, then came "printers, plain-coloured sizers and coaters and carpenters" (twenty-five to fifty sous)  and finally "carriers, grinders and dressers, packers and sweeps"(twenty-five to thirty sous).  He also admits that "in the fourth class" he employed children aged twelve to fifteen (eight to fifteen sous), though he took care to ensure that they received religious instruction befitting their years!  There is no reason, however, to doubt Réveillon's word that, by 18th-century standards, he exercised a benevolent paternalism and enjoyed the loyalty of his workforce.

Rioters create havoc in the beautiful grounds of Titonville

The folie Titon, "Titonville" as it was also called, was a highly suitable setting for a man on the make in a luxury industry. A vast estate, right in the heart of Saint-Antoine, it had originally been created in 1673 by the arms manufacturer Maximilien Titon, and was sold off on the death of his son Évrard Titon du Tillet. Réveillon installed his wallpaper factory on the ground floor of the substantial mansion and kept the first floor for his own apartment, with all Titon du Tillet's magnificent furniture and a library of 50,000 books. The house also contained well-stocked cellars, with many bottles of fine wine:  2000 were apparently rescued intact from the rioters in April 1789. The grounds were graced with pavilions and outbuildings complete with box-wood maze, an orangery, stables and a quincunx garden feature adorned with statues.  Nothing now remains of the site, beyond a commemorative plaque; it was demolished in 1880 and replaced by an artisanal complex, la Cour industrie, itself the recent beneficiary of a 12-million Euros regeneration project. There is still a rue Titon and a little park which was once part of the gardens.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b550015557

Réveillon situated himself very much in the late patrician Enlightenment of style, education and Royal patronage. He submitted his innovations in paper manufacture to the Académie des sciences and basked in the glory of his status as royal manufacturer.  In 1785 he won the prize offered by Necker for "the encouragement of the useful arts" (Sadly, his splendid gold medal was lost in the destruction of his premises;  Necker promised him a new one in June 1789, but it was not until May 1792 that the National Assembly finally decreed a replacement.)  He was also a close associate of the ballooning pioneer Étienne Montgolfier, whose family paper business vied with his for the honour of having first introduced brass moulds to make superior vélin. Montgolfier's circles included such luminaries as Franklin, Lavoisier and Malesherbes, and a letter from Réveillon to Franklin exists, broaching  the possibilities of American markets for paper. The wallpaper manufacturer was a prominent participant in the Montgolfier brothers' first hot-air balloon experiments. It was with Réveillon's assistance that Montgolfier, following the initial trial at Annonay, constructed a massive 37,000 cubic-foot balloon of taffeta coated with fireproof varnish.  The Aérostat Réveillon flew first from the grounds of the folie Titon on 11 September, then on 19th September, before huge crowds at Versailles , with its barnyard passengers:  a sheep, a duck and a rooster.  In October the first manned ascent took place, again from Titonville, using a still larger 60,000 cubic foot balloon.  After a preliminary ascent by Montgolfier himself, the balloon, with Pilâtre de Rozier (and according to some accounts the marquis d'Arlandes) on board, soared briefly to 80 feet on its tether over the Réveillon works.  Both balloons bore the hallmark of Réveillon's design, with blue backgrounds, emblazoned with fleurs-de-lis, signs of the zodiac and suns bearing the royal visage.

What a class advertisement!

References

 

Bust of Réveillon by 
Jean-Baptiste Defernex, 1752.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Exposé justicatif for Mr Réveillon, entrepreneur of the Royal Manufacture of wallpaper, Faubourg St. Antoine "in Memoirs of the Marquis de Ferrieres , 3 vols. 1: p.427-38.
https://archive.org/stream/
mmoiresdumarqui04ferrgoog#page/n453/mode/2up

Leonard N.Rosenband, "Jean-Baptiste Réveillon: a man on the make in Old Regime France", French historical studies, vol.20(3) 1997, p.421-510 [JStor article]

Review of Christine Velut; Décors de papier. Production, commerce et usages des papiers peints à Paris, 1750-1820 (2005) http://dht.revues.org/1070

See also: 

Alain Thillay Le faubourg Saint-Antoine et ses "faux ouvriers": la liberté du travail à Paris aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (2002) [Extracts on Google Books]

"Folie Titon, rue de Montreuil" 
http://www.norrac.com/crbst_417.html

Denis Cosnard. "Les trois Cours de l'Industrie, la Folie Titon et l'émeute Réveillon"

 Des usines à Paris [blog]. post dated 18 July 2011  http://lafabriquedeparis.blogspot.com/2011/07/les three-course-of-industry-la-folie.html

Letter from Réveillon to Ben Franklin, c.4th April 1783
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-39-02-0265#BNFN-01-39-02-0265-fn-0001-ptr

 Michel Hennin, Histoire numismatique de la révolution française (1826), Vol.1 p.240. [Details of  Réveillon's medal - on Google Books]

Wallpaper: More making wallpaper....

http://www.zuber.fr/html/video.html

Here is a marvellous video from the website of Zuber & Cie showing wallpaper manufacture according to methods in use the end of the 18th century.  Founded in 1792 at Rixheim in Alsace, Zuber is famous for its panoramic wallpapers. The company's vast archive of samples forms the basis of the Musée du papier peint which was set up in 1982. In addition they possess no less than 150,000 original wooden blocks from 1797-1830, which are still regularly used for  the manufacture of fine papers.

Zuber are still in business and they really don't want images of their papers reproduced, so I won't;  there are loads on their website ( http://www.zuber.fr).  There is also a "Jean Zuber" Facebook page
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jean-Zuber/118477208170085)

Wallpaper: later 18th-century papers

From the 1760s, France took over from England as leader in the production of luxury wallpapers. As well as the flocks,  French manufacturers perfected the art of creating elaborately decorated papiers peints, based on the technique of block printing using water-based distemper colours to create a deep and uniform finish.  Jean-Michel Papillon described the new technique  in 1766 – “all distemper and absolutely matt like stage scenery” - and it was definitively established by the 1770s.  Wallpaper production continued to flourish throughout  the Revolutionary period and into the mid-nineteenth century . The business of Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, and his successors Jacquemart and Bénard, is the most famous and best-documented, but there were many others.  The Almanach de Paris for 1788 listed 48 "papetiers en meubles", ranging from a couple of employees to Réveillon’s 350 workers. By 1795 the firm of Robert & Cie, which is virtually unknown, had exceeded Réveillon’s enterprise in size and employed 400 people.

The industry was concentrated in Paris, in the rue Saint-Jacques and later the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and in Lyons, the capital of silk weaving – where again it is ill-documented. The availability of specialist designers and a skilled work force were an obvious attraction in these centres.  The one exception was Jean Zuber who set up in 1792 at Rixheim, near Mulhouse in Alsace, though here too there were close ties with the local textile industry.  It is clear that competition for novelty and fine design was intense – the Musée des Arts Décoratifs has pattern books of Réveillon's dating from 1770, 1771 and 1772, representing no less than 61 different wallpapers, both flocks and distemper block prints. In 1776 Réveillon, went into partnership with a merchant called Delafosse who sold his papers from fashionable premises in the rue du Caroussel, opposite the Tuileries.  Here clientele could could presumably view the ready made rolls or peruse sample books at leisure.

Types of papers:

Arabesque panels and papers

The production of free standing decorative panels and overdoors harped back to an older tradition of wallpaper manufacture in France, the production of dominos and papiers tapisseries, single block printed sheets, often in imitation of textiles.  Réveillon was the undisputed master of the genre, employing designers from the Gobelin tapestry works to create original and elaborate papers.  His panels could comprise several sheets of paper, but were intended as discrete pieces, often hung in sets with minor variations in each example.  Many designs were inspired by Roman models – Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, and later the finds at Herculaneum and Pompeii,.  Typically they were “Arabesques”, featuring symmetrical vases  overflowing with flowers, or with birds (the famous “two pigeons” and variants)  Other trademark motifs included : winged putti riding lions; statues  under a canopy or octagonal medaillons with Classical seated figure. Yet other sets of papers  featured allegorical figures representing the five senses, printed in grisaille on a green or blue ground.  In reality there was no hard and fast division in motifs  between panels and continuous papers.  Arabesques by Reveillon which were almost as ambitious can be found as “sidewalls” (ie. papers intended to cover the main wall space)  

Réveillon designs for Clandon Park Surrey
Sold by Christies in 2003 for £1,195!

All these papers were incredibly elaborate and, since they required as many blocks as colours, laboursome to produce.  Madame de Genlis reports seeing a paper at  Réveillon’s which require 80 blocks to complete; twenty or so was not at all unusual.

Moccas Court in Herefordshire, boasts the only surviving example in England of  Réveillon wallpaper panels still in their original setting.  Frank Knight recently had the property on the market for a cool £5,250,000; it is now a luxury hotel.

Imitation of textiles

Although the fashion for flocks diminished, expensive fabrics, silk, velvet and tapestry, continued to be imitated throughout the century.  In 1770-90 Reveillon’s catalogues contain distemper-printed papers which are line-for-line replicas of known Lyons designs on crimson, blue or yellow grounds.  Parallel white lines are overprinted on pale grey to suggest threads of brocade; and varnish has been added to the colour to create a silken sheen.  


Florals

Floral patterns became a major motif from 1780s onwards.  Before this date they occured mainly as part of feature panels and overdoors, but now they became fashionable for printed boarders or, in simpler form,  for whole walls.  Again. the characteristic designs are associated particularly with Réveillon.  Later designs were lighter and more naturalistic, reflecting the change in fashion away from the imitation of heavy silk damask fabrics towards naturalism and domesticity.

Réveillon, floral paper of 1789
 © Les Arts Décoratifs

References

Françoise Teynac, Pierre Nolot and  Jean Denis Vivien, Wallpaper: a history (English trans. Thames & Hudson, 1982)

Bernard Jacqué, "Luxury perfected: the ascendancy of French wallpaper 1700-1870", The painted wall, ed. by Lesley Hoskins (2005), p.56-75

_________, "De la manufacture au mur", doctoral thesis, University of Lyons2, 2003.
http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/getpart.php?id=593&action=pdf

Christine Velut; Décors de papier. Production, commerce et usages des papiers peints à Paris, 1750-1820 (2005).  Reviewed:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/65288

 "Papiers peints de la fin du XVIII^e siècle, Manufacture Réveillon"  Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/fr/09doc/06bases/presentations/reveillon.html


Collections of wallpapers: 

Wallpaper from Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris on akg images
http://www.akg-images.fr/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2UMESQ50MZ57N&SMLS=1&RW=1600&RH=732

Exhibition of 18th-century wallpapers at the Musée du papier peint (Rixheim, Alsace), Dec. 2006-Nov.2007
http://www.meublepeint.com/papiers-painted-exposure-rixheim.htm

Réveillon wallpaper in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum

https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/departments/35347503/people/18046439/?q=&has_images=1&sort=relevance&sort_order=asc&results=images

Panels sold at Christies in 2003

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/LargeImage.aspx?image=http://www.christies.com/lotfinderimages/d40556/d4055610x.jpg
.  

Wallpaper: Manufacturing and hanging

If information on wallpaper design in the first half of the 18th century is limited, evidence for manufacturing processes is even more scarce. The main source again is Jean-Marie Papillon. In the early 20th century Monsieur Violle, a government official in Diderot's home town of Langres, discovered seven sheets of black pencil and wash drawings, all signed by Papillon, and illustrating various aspects of the wallpaper trade. The presumption is that these were submissions for inclusion in the Encyclopédie which were never published but had been left behind by Diderot, probably when he went to visit his sister in Langres in July 1759.  The plates were published for the first time by P.Gusman in 1925.

The pictures no doubt represent the interior of the workshop in the rue Saint-Jacques. In his Traité Jean-Michel Papillon describes how he resented being forced to work all day in his father's business "printing wallpapers, as likely colouring them in when I was not cutting out the blocks, as going to houses of quality to attend to the hanging of papers" (Quoted Wallpaper p.27). It is interesting that four of the seven drawings are concerned with paper hanging which was evidently the most delicate and difficult part of the profession, often involving complex arrangements of wooden panelling and stretched canvas. Papillon illustrates the various different types of papers -  panels for fireplaces and chimneys, continuous designs for large wall panels, landscapes in the Chinese style, edging papers, friezes, papers imitating wood and marble, and floral designs and rosettes for ceilings.  He also shows techniques for creating false paper ceiling, for papering a  staircase and a circular alcove.  He includes both flock and distemper papers.

Plates for the Encyclopédie

Equipment for printing. 

Strip 1: Paper and planks to hold it in place while printing

Strip 2: Paper prepared, dampened and held ready for press

between two planks by means of heavy weights.

Strip 3: The printing table to which the block is fixed

Strip 4: Tools for inking the block.  In the foreground workmen are

making inking pads.



2. Printing up the blocks

Strip 1: Inking pad and rollers.

Strip 2: A sheet of paper is prepared and carefully placed on the block.

Strip 3: A sheet is printed, lifted off the block and hung to dry.

Strip 4: The newly printed sheets are piled up.



3. Drying, checking and colouring the sheets (strips 1-2)

Strip 3: View of the workshop in the rue Saint-Jacques

Strip 4: Inside the house where the paper is to be hung;

the old paper is removed and the glue heated.

4. Preparing to hang the paper

  

Strip 1: The walls are marked out and the paper trimmed

Strip 2:  Various ways to trim different sheets

Strip 3: Further marking out and measuring the wall

5. Hanging the paper

Strip 1: Gluing the sheets of paper

Strip 2: Applying to the walls

Strip 3: Adding borders

Strip 4: Bottom borders.  Completed panel in the Chinese style.

6. Various arrangements and patterns of hanging

Strip 1: Wainscot and frieze

Strip 2: False ceilings

Strip 3: Finishing touches - the paper is presented to the owners

of the house

Strip 4: A papered alcove

References

J.-M Papillon, "Etapes de la fabrication et de la pose du papier peint" (unpublished drawings) 
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.128128833871589.17718.118477208170085&type=3

Françoise Teynac, Pierre Nolot and  Jean Denis Vivien, Wallpaper: a history (English trans. Thames & Hudson, 1982), p.27-36.

Wallpaper: Flocked papers

Flocked wallpaper seems an odd craze but flocks imported from England became all the rage in mid 18th-century France, prompting the well-to-do to rip down their tapestries in favour of les papiers en tontisse,  les papiers veloutés, or le papier bleu d'Angleterre.  "The English could never have tried to imitate our fine tapestries, so they have put them out of fashion with their wallpapers", quipped Madame de Genlis.

Flocked papers were produced not by block printing but by sprinkling powdered cloth, or flock, in a pattern defined in tacky paper to resemble velvets and brocades.


Production in England is usually dated from 1634, when a patent for manufacture was awarded to a London printer called Jerome Lanyer. But it did not really take off until after 1685 when John Briscoe perfected a machine for making paper which was considered as good a quality as continental papers.  Shortly before 1700 Adam Price founded the "Blue Paper Warehouse" at Aldermanbury and subsequently moved into the production of flock wallpapers in blue.  English designs usually imitated damask and were characteristically either in a single colour, or one colour on a gold ground.  The designs would be applied either by stencilling or printing from a woodblock in adhesive onto which coloured powdered wool was spread.   By this means flocked papers could be made to a very high standard, partly because of the quality of English paper, partly because of the delicacy of colouring and the superiors designs.

English dominance in wallpaper manufacture in the mid-century was also fueled by  what has been called "revolution in wallpaper printing"; like all great innovations,  a deceptively simple idea - the wallpaper roll!  The practice of pasting individual sheets of paper together - often to as long as 36 feet - before printing greatly extended design possibilities - notably the imitation of expensive textiles such as silks, velvets and tapestries.

All of which is a good excuse to post some clips on the history of wallpaper from BBC Four's spltendid "Fabric of Britain". Wallpaper expert Allyson McDermott and presenter Paul Martin have great fun recreating 18th-century painting and flocking techniques (but how labour-intensive they were!):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01hb4d3
BBC Four Fabric of Britain: The Story of wallpaper : There are three separate clips:  Making flock wallpaper; Painting flock wall paper and Chopping up wool.

In France imported English flock papers from the Blue Paper Warehouse and other London factories enjoyed a remarkable success and were adopted by the highest society.  In 1753 the duc de Mirepoix, the French ambassador in London had  blue papers sent to Paris and the English ambassador Lord Albermarle used them to adorn the house he had rented in Passy. According to the famous wallpaper manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, that was the defining moment - the craze was on.  In 1754 Madame de Pompadour, no less,  put blue paper on the walls of her wardrobe at Versailles and on the corridor linking her appartment with the chapel; four years later she wallpapered the bathroom at the Château de Champs-sur-Marne.

Though other manufacturers, such as Didier Aubert and Lecomte in Lyon, took up the production of flocks in France, it was Réveillon who was the first to master the art of the roll, matching seams and mounting the paper. He used his expertise to drive down prices whilst maintaining a quality product, and soon surpassed his English models in range and mastery.(Rosenband, p.486-7).  Whereas English papers were mostly monochrome with large-scale patterns, Réveillon used multi-coloured flocks to copy the intricate floral designs of Lyon silk. In these papers he made use of both superimposed layers of flock (perhaps to suggest brocade) and of repiquage or overprinting with distemper colour.

Examples of Réveillon's flocked papers are now quite rare.  Here is a typical sheet which was sold by Drouot in 2009 for 200€.

http://www.pba-auctions.com/html/fiche.jsp?id=1193531&np=8&lng=fr&npp=20&ordre=&aff=2&r=

.Réveillon even successfully exported his papers to England - this beautiful flocked version of a his hallmark "Deux pigeons" design was hung in Clandon Park, Surrey in the 1780s (nationaltrustimages.org):

References


Alyson McDermott, Historical Interiors
http://www.allysonmcdermott.com/

Françoise Teynac, Pierre Nolot and  Jean Denis Vivien, Wallpaper: a history (English trans. Thames & Hudson, 1982), p.66-75.

"What is flock velvet wallpaper?" on Wallpaper History [blog]
http://wallpaperhistory.com/VintageWallpaperGuide/
category/flocked-velvet-wall-paper/

"Flock wallpapers", Victoria & Albert Museum
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/f/flock-wallpapers/

Leonard N. Rosenband, "Jean-Baptiste Réveillon: a man on the make in Old Regime France", French historical studies, vol.20(3) 1997, p.421-510 [JStor article]

Wallpaper: Early 18th-century paper

I recently came into possession of an excellent French book on wallpaper:  Françoise Teynac, Pierre Nolot and  Jean Denis Vivien, Wallpaper: a history (English trans.Thames & Hudson, 1982), and thought I would base a few posts on it.

Although the wallpaper industry developed first in England,  the probability is that by the beginning of the 18th century century wallpaper was just as widely used in France, though comparative few examples survive.  Wallpapers were produced by artisan shopkeepers – cardmakers, dominoteurs, paper merchants and wood engravers of all kinds. There was a long tradition of "dominos", marbled and coloured papers printed with wooden blocks on single sheets of paper, used in various decorative contexts such as lining papers and book endpapers as well as for walls.  In the late 17th century these were joined by papiers de tapisserie imitations of luxury fabric and architectural elements such as wood panelling and plaster mouldings.  The simplest designs were geometric repeating patterns requiring a single block, which were heightened with coloured size applied either by hand or through cut-out stencils.  Wavy bands of images, mainly flowers and birds, could then be added.  The more complex papers, which needed several blocks to complete, could be assembled in large decorative panels and included the newly-fashionable chinoiseries.  Glued down and surrounded by printed borders and often with a top frieze with architectural motif or arabesque.

Shops in the rue Saint-Jacques, from a drawing by J.-M. Papillon

There is a definite sense that wallpaper went up the social scale at this time.  Savary des Bruslons in his Dictionnaire universel du commerce,  described a "domino" as a "sort of tapestry on paper, which for a long time was used by the peasants and the poorer classes in Paris to cover the walls of their huts or their rooms and shops".  In his 1713 version he was able to add that its production had reached a new high point of perfection and elegance: "there is not a house in Paris, however grand, that does not contain some example of this charming decoration, even if only in a wardrobe or other private room" (quoted, Wallpaper, p.22).  

Most of the information early manufacture comes from Jean-Michel Papillon (1698-1776), author of a Traité historique et pratique de la gravure sur bois (1766) and the contributor of the article "Domino" to the Encyclopédie. Papillon was the third of a dynasty of wood engravers who from 1663 onwards owned a workshop in the rue Saint-Jacques near the St. Séverin fountain. Papillon's father Jean was the first and foremost of  the Paris dominotiers. who, although he did not abandon general engraving and stationery work,successfully  created a business specialising in wallpaper manufacture.According to manuscript additions to Traité , Jean Papillon  is to be credited with a number of important innovations in manufacture.  Whereas the old dominotiers had cut a pattern in a series of small blocks from a paper template, Papillon père used one plank of wood three feet long, sometimes drawing his design directly onto the wood. He also perfected the technique of "lustre" paper which was powdered over with ground up paints rather than brushed or stencilled. His key contribution, however, came in 1688 (or 1692) when he came up with the idea of printing from multiple blocks, so that sheets could be pasted together to form continuous patterns; according to his son he thus single-handedly launching the fashion for the much for ambitious and up-market papiers de tapisserie based on textile designs.

It is clear that Jean-Michel himself , member of the Société des Arts, preferred "fine wood engraving" to the production of wallpapers and a few years after his father's death in 1723 he sold off the stock of the business and the wallpaper blocks to a widow named Madame Langlois.

Very few of Papillon's wallpapers survive. Jean-Michel's manuscript "Oeuvres", now in the Cabinet d'Estampes in the Bibliothèque Nationale, give some examples but contain only seven sheets. They include his very first engraved design, a black outline of poppies made in 1707. Another, made for the "Royal Varnisher" Monsieur Martin, imitates figured velvet and there is also a large block for mosaic paper with flowers and butterflies in a scroll. A further design with complex motifs of flowers and mosaic was cut in 1727 for the sculptor Roumier, who designed it. 

Poppies - the first block engraving by a youthful J.-M Papillon (1707)

Ornamental paper designed by Roumier and printed by J.-M. Papillon 1727

In addition to these, fragments of an actual wallpaper with Papillon's mark were discovered when the Château de Bercy was demolished in 1860. Dating to about 1710, this features a complex symmetrical pattern based on four sheets:

Here is another small fragment from an elaborate frieze, dated c.1715 (Les Arts Décoratifs):


Although Papillon's writings make it clear that his father's lead was rapidly followed, the wall paper business in the first half of the century remained closely connected with other printing and engraving trades. In Paris these were centred on the rue Saint-Jacques where shops in the arcades displayed merchandise under awnings and later glazed windows, whilst workshops behind opened out  onto inner courtyards. Those involved in paper manufacture characteristically bound together by ties of inheritance, marriage and the bonds of master and apprentice. Designers were in heavy demand and seem to have moved fluidly between engravings for paper, tapestries and textiles.

Trade card of Didier Aubert "au papillon",
Rothschild Collection Waddesdon.

Other makers are known mainly from Papillon himself or from directories and newspapers. One of the most successful was Le Sueur, who had been an apprentice with Papillon, then set up as a rival with Vincent Pesant, Blondel and Pierre Panseron as his designers - the latter subsequently making his name as an architect and superintendant of construction for the Prince de Conti. Others involved were Roumier, who designed a number of fine plates of flowers and ornaments;  Dufoucroy; and Jean Pillemont who designed famous Chinoiserie patterns for the Lyon silk industry. The Englishman John Baptist Jackson, who later set up in Battersea also travelled to Paris and learned his trade with Papillon fils. Others still are mere names: Masson and his successor Miyer; Basset, Forcoy, Vaseau and Goupy.   In 1740 Madame Langois unsuccessfully disputed the right to use the sign "Au papillon" with the engraver Didier Aubert, who had set up a business selling wallpapers near the Hôtel de Saumur. 

 Another notable dynasty involved in printing and wallpaper manufacture was the Chauveau family. It was Jacques Chauveau, Papillon's brother-in-law, who perfected the method of printing wallpaper à la rentrure, applying each colour from a separately engraved block using register marks (rentrées) for guidance.  This effectively did away with the need for hand brushing and stencils.  Chauveau used oil-based colours rather than the size favoured by English manufacturers, making his papers more more water resistant but without the prized matt finish.  

[to be continued]

References

Jean-Michel Papillon, Traité historique et pratique de la gravure sur bois (1766) vol.1
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v6PppacFLpAC&dq=papillon+traite+1766&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Françoise Teynac, Pierre Nolot and  Jean Denis Vivien, Wallpaper: a history (English trans. Thames & Hudson, 1982)

Geert Wisse, "Manifold beginnings" in The painted wall, ed. by Lesley Hoskins (2005), p.8-21.

Henri Clouzot, "La tradition du papier peint en France au xviie et xviiie siècles" Gazette des beaux-arts, February 1912, p.131-43.  http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k61200690/f142.image
"Papillon et les dominoteurs" La Revue de 'Art Ancien et Moderne, 1931, p.77-88
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k4325646/f78.image
Clouzot was author of the standard work on wallpaper published in 1931, but I can't find  his actual monograph online.

Phyllis Ackerman, Wallpaper, its history design and uses (1923)
https://archive.org/stream/wallpaperitshist00ackeuoft#page/n7/mode/2up