Zprávy památkové péče 2020, 80(2):185-199 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2020.2.05

The diversity of Chinese wallpaper - interior decoration in the 18th and 19th centuries

Lucie Olivová

Seminář čínských studií, FF Masarykova univerzita v Brně

The article focuses on Chinese wallpapers from the 18th and 19th centuries which decorated the interiors of aristocratic residences in what is today the Czech Republic. It is based on a survey of preserved wallpapers and professional literature, listed in the introduction by the author. Unlike in Europe, Chinese interiors did not use wallpaper. This is why Europeans at first had only smaller prints available that were sometimes imported from China; these would be fastened individually to a larger textile or paper base. This method of application was used in two rooms at the Veltrusy chateau. The woodcuts date back to the 1840s and were made in Suzhou. They depict scenes of beauty and flower scenes that fall within the scope of the Ding Liangxian workshop. Other Suzhou woodcuts depicting beauty have been preserved in the residence of the princes of Auersperg. The same woodcuts are found in residences and collections in England, Germany, and other countries. Around the middle of the 18th century, "real" wallpapers began to be produced in Guangzhou in a format corresponding to castle interiors in Europe. It is assumed that the production of these "Cantonese wallpapers", mostly of paper and decorated with paintings, came as per requirements of European clients. Wallpapers bearing continuous panoramic landscapes, complemented by buildings and staffage, have not been preserved in situ in the Czech Republic. The depository of the Valtice chateau, however, holds a relatively early copy of a wallpaper depicting a mountainous landscape with figures. This extraordinary set of six silk panoramic wallpapers, originally ordered for Versailles in the 1770s, was brought after the French Revolution to Lednice, where it decorated the interior of a now defunct Chinese gazebo. The ensemble is gradually being restored at present. Chinese wallpapers bearing the motif of "flowers and birds" can be found in several buildings. Silk wallpapers with the motif of the "tree of life" adorns the oval lounge in the Archbishop's Palace in Prague. It can be indirectly documented that this motif, depicted on home-made wallpapers, penetrated into bourgeois interiors in the last quarter of the 18th century. An intact interior decorated with silk painted wallpaper of Chinese or perhaps French provenance has also been preserved in a guest apartment at Veltrusy chateau. We can see changed designs on printed and hand-colored wallpapers in the corner Chinese salon in Lednice which probably date back to the 19th century. The most popular variant of floral wallpaper, however, is the one that evokes the impression of a garden. Paper wallpapers with images on a blue background, the design of which corresponds to the end of the 18th century, have been preserved at Červený Dvůr chateau in southern Bohemia; silk wallpaper with similar scenes again at the Bruntál castle in Silesia. Both interiors were furnished later. The popularity of this version still lives on; an example from the beginning of the 20th century, painted with period ink, can be seen in the castle of Hradec nad Moravicí. The last theme of Cantonese wallpapers combines flowers and birds with miniature figures, already inherited from Cantonese reality. The unlikely contrast of giant and miniature elements comes across as comical. Such wallpapers adorn two rooms at the chateau in Čimelice and the anteroom on the ground floor of Lednice chateau; they are from the end of the 19th century and were probably both purchased at the world exhibition in Vienna. In conclusion, it follows that authentic Chinese wallpapers have been preserved in the Czech Republic in considerable diversity, however sporadically, in the residences belonging to the higher nobility with a connection to the imperial court.

Keywords: Chinese wallpaper, paper, silk, workshops of Ding Liangxian, Suzhou, Canton, overseas shop, Lednice, Červený Dvůr, Bruntál, Hradec nad Moravicí, 18th century, 19th century

Published: June 1, 2020  Show citation