Chinese wallpaper
Hand-painted wallpapers with trees, birds and daily life, made in Canton for European drawing rooms.
Chinese wallpapers were the most expensive wall coverings of 18th-century Europe. They came on the same ships as porcelain and tea, and each set was enough for one room.
Rococo loved Chinese motifs – chinoiserie – and European wallpaper makers soon made printed imitations of their own. Genuine Chinese wallpapers survive in a few Swedish palaces and manor houses.
Materials: Paper, hand-painted in tempera and sometimes silver
Manufacture: Painted by hand in workshops in Canton and shipped to Europe by the East India companies, in sets of drops forming one continuous picture.
A picture that continues across several drops without repeating.
Flowering trees, birds, insects and bamboo, or scenes of daily life.
Hand-painted brushstrokes, not printing.