Réveillon arabesque wallpaper
The Paris factory’s hand-printed papers with classical arabesques, in up to a hundred printings.
In the 1780s Jean-Baptiste Réveillon ran Europe’s most famous wallpaper factory, which was given the title of royal manufactory. His papers printed the grotesques and arabesques of antiquity, once painted by Raphael in the Vatican.
The factory was sacked in the Réveillon riots of April 1789, a few months before the storming of the Bastille. Réveillon’s papers were copied all over Europe, Sweden included.
Materials: Rag paper, distemper colours
Manufacture: Block-printed in Jean-Baptiste Réveillon’s factory in Paris; each colour required its own wooden block.
Symmetrical arabesques with urns, scrolls and medallions round a central axis.
The matt, chalky surface of distemper.
Small misalignments between colours where blocks met.