"The glazed chintzes of the present day are all done over old blocks which had remained unused for half a century, and those very interesting fabrics are in the original colorings, it having been found that any new schemes of color do not seem to work so well."
Sending recently to a leading Boston paper store for samples for my dining-room, and expressing no desire for old patterns, I received a reproduction of the paper on the hall of the old Longfellow house at Portland, Maine, and a design of small medallions of the real antique kind,—a shepherdess with her sheep and, at a little distance, a stiff looking cottage, presumably her abode, set on a shiny white ground marked with tiny tiles.
In fact, there is a general revival of these old designs, the original blocks often being used for re-printing. Go to any large store in any city to-day, where wall-papers are sold, and chintzes and cretonnes for the finest effects in upholstery. You will be shown, first, old-fashioned landscape papers; botanically impossible, but cheerful baskets of fruits and flowers; or panels, with a pretty rococo effect of fairy-like garlands of roses swung back and forth across the openwork of the frame at each side, and suspended in garlands at top and bottom after French modes of the Louis XIV., XV. or XVI. periods. They are even reproducing the hand woven tapestries of Gobelin of Paris, during the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV., when French art was at its height.
In London Tit-Bits, I recently found something apropos: "'Here,' said a wall-paper manufacturer, 'are examples of what we call tapestry papers. They are copied exactly from the finest Smyrna and Turkish rugs, the colors and designs being reproduced with startling fidelity. We have men ransacking all Europe, copying paintings and mural decorations of past centuries. Here is the pattern of a very beautiful design of the time of Louis XVI., which we obtained in rather a curious way. One of our customers happened to be in Paris last summer, and being fond of inspecting old mansions, he one day entered a tumble-down chateau, which once belonged to a now dead and long forgotten Marquise. The rooms were absolutely in a decaying condition, but in the salon the wall-paper still hung, though in ribbons. The pattern was so exquisite in design, and the coloring, vivid still in many places, so harmonious, that he collected as many portions as he could and sent them to us to reproduce as perfectly as possible.
"We succeeded beyond his best hopes, and the actual paper is now hanging on the walls of a West End mansion. We only manufactured sufficient to cover the ball-room, and it cost him two pounds a yard, but he never grumbled, and it was not dear, considering the difficulty we had."
An article in the Artist of London, September, 1898, by Lindsay P. Butterfield, describes a wonderful find of old paper and its restoration:
"Painted decoration, whether by hand or stencil, was, no doubt, the immediate forerunner of paper hangings. The earliest reference to paper hangings in this country is to be found in the inventory taken at 'the monasterye of S. Syxborough in the Ile of Shepey, in the Countie of Kent, by Syr Thomas Cheney, Syr William Hawle, Knyghts and Antony Slewtheger, Esquyer, the XXVII day of Marche, in XXVII the yeare of our Soveraigne Lorde, Kyng Henrye the VIII, of the goods and catall belongyng to sayde Monastery.'
"In this very interesting document, a minutely descriptive list of the ornaments, furniture and fittings of the nuns' chambers is given. We find from this that, in place of the 'paynted clothes for the hangings of the chamber,' mentioned in most of the entries, under the heading of Dame Margaret Somebody's chamber is set down 'the chamber hangings of painted papers.'
"Wall-papers of Charles II.'s reign, and later, are still in existence; those at Ightham Mote, Kent, are well known instances.
"But so far as the writer is aware, the accompanying reproductions represent the oldest wall-papers now existing in England. They were found during the restoration of a fifteenth century timber-built house, known as 'Borden Hall' or the 'Parsonage Farm,' in the village of Borden, near Sittingbourne, Kent.