When this dwelling was first built, the parlor, at the right of the hallway, was papered in a rare old hanging, that was removed when defaced, the owners at the time giving little thought to its value. In the room, since its erection, has hung a great, handsomely framed mirror, occupying an entire panel space. Behind this mirror, a short time ago, when the room was to be repapered, a panel of the first wall covering was discovered, as distinct in coloring and detail as the day it was placed there. It is one of twelve panels,—consisting of twenty-six breadths each five feet seven inches long by twenty inches wide, fifteen hundred blocks being used in its printing,—depicting the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche's lack of faith, and the sad ending of the romance, and is a pattern that is numbered among the most noted designed. The panel found here has been preserved, and the old mirror hung in place hides it from view.
Such papers are a keen delight to lovers of the colonial, for they convey their meaning clearly and attractively in well-chosen and harmonious coloring. Contrasted with present papers, depicting designs figured or flowered, they show their worth, and it is little wonder that architects have discovered their fascination, and are having old ideas in new dress depicted on the walls of many modern dwellings.
The colonists understood harmony in home decoration, and their wall hangings as well as their furniture were carefully chosen. They purchased papers to suit their apartments, and the colors were selected with a view to the best effect, so that the soft white of the woodwork might be in keeping with their pictorial value. Consistency is the keynote of the colonial interior, and it is this feature that has given to homes of this type that touch of distinction that no other period of architecture possesses.
Plate XXI.—Venetian paper in Wheelwright House, Newburyport.
The old wall papers all represent foreign scenes, those of France and England predominating, the latter in a greater degree than the former, though the French papers were more highly finished than the English. When the colonist became prosperous, and the newest fashions of the motherland were eagerly copied, wall papers of both types were imported; many of these are still preserved, showing shadings done by hand with the utmost care, and colorings of lovely reds, blues, and browns, all produced by the use of from fifteen to twenty sets of blocks.
One of the most exquisite of French papers is shown in the Knapp house at Newburyport, Massachusetts, built by a Revolutionary hero, at the time of the erection of the Lee Mansion at Marblehead. This paper is thought to have been fashioned in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and in type it is like that found on the hall of the "Hermitage," Andrew Jackson's residence near Nashville, Tennessee. It is produced in wonderful shades of soft green, red, peacock blue, and white, all undimmed by time, and it represents scenes from Fénelon's "Adventure of Telemachus," a favorite novelty in Paris in 1820.
Other fine examples of this type of paper, which have never been hung, are still preserved in the home of Major George Whipple at Salem, having been imported about 1800. These show different scenes, including representations of gateways and fountains, with people in the foreground.
Natural scenes were favorite themes with many designers, one such example being a Venetian scheme still shown on the walls of the Wheelwright house in Newburyport, a fine, colonial dwelling, built a hundred years ago by an ancestor of William Wheelwright, whose energies resulted in the first railroad over the Andes. This paper is found in the drawing-room, and another, illustrative of a chariot race, is shown in one of the chambers.