irish period wallpapers

Irish Arts Review

Irish Period WallpapersAuthor(s): David SkinnerSource: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 13 (1997), pp. 52-61Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20492936 .

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IRISH PERIOD WALLPAPERS

T he existence of a wallpaper printing industry in Ireland in

the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies is not surprising, given the range of arts and manufactures practised during this period, but nevertheless the scale and variety of the wallpaper makers' output is impressive. A Commission of Inquiry into the taxation of wall papers held in 1835 recorded a hundred and eight licensed paper-stainers (as wallpaper makers were known) in England, two in Scotland and forty-six in Ireland,' and the late Ada

Longfield (Mrs Leask), whose meticulous research into the wall paper and textile printing industries is evidenced in the many articles on these subjects she published in several journals,2 was able to compile a list of around a hundred paper-stainers work ing in Dublin between 1700 and 1800. Wallpaper manufacture flourished in Ireland well into the nineteenth century, with a few notable families continuing in business over several genera tions. A descendant of Michael Boylan, a paper-stainer with premises on Grafton Street, who was recorded as exporting six thousand yards of 'Irish paper-hangings' to Philadelphia in 1783,3 was still in business at the same address in 1835.' The names of several wallpaper 'dynasties' - the Dunns, Fullers, Gordons and Kents - appear regularly in trade directories, and it is interesting to note the number of women who took over and ran businesses established by husbands or fathers. The advent of

machine printing in the 1830s and the availability of cheap imported papers probably played a decisive role in the eventual demise of the industry - no Irish entrepreneurs, it appears, were willing to make the necessary investment in the new technology. In an essay entitled

The Histy of Paperhangings published in Liverpool in 1875, the author, G H Morton, names nine paper-stainers active in that

city between 1796 and 1841, the majority of whom had moved

there from Ireland. 'It is singular,' he adds, 'that the trade has

declined in Ireland, and there is no manufacturer of any impor

tance left.'5 Unfortunately, no actual examples of early wallpaper printed

in Ireland was found during Mrs Leask's lifetime, and she had to

rely on the paper-stainers' own extravagantly worded descrip tions in order to visualise their products. A number of discoveries

have been made since then, however, of which three provide

identifiable examples of the work of Irish paper stainers. It is due

chiefly to the efforts of architect John O'Connell, whose restora tion of Fota House in the early 1980s set new standards for the

conservation of historic wallpapers in this country, and whose office has for some years been an unofficial national wallpaper

archive, that two precious examples of the work of Irish paper

stainers are preserved. The earliest piece of wallpaper surviving in Ireland was found

David Skinner pieces together

rare scraps and fragments of the

paper-hanger's art

1. TH RoYAL HosPrrAL, KiANHAm. Flock Wallpaper, c.1680-1700. This is the earliest surviving Irish wallpaper. It is painted and overprinted with a flock design that is also

found on several English wallpapers of the period.

T IMB.LUTE-PAPEFR

\4areliou.f'e iil AlderJ i\n an b u rvL owDo x

2. TRADE CARD OF ABRAHAM PRICE. London 1720. (British Museum, London). Several wallpaper patterns are featured in this advertisement including (on the extreme left) the design of the Royal Hospital

wallpaper (Fig 1).

3. (Opposite).- FoTA HOUSE, Co Cork. Block printed waUpaper and flocked border, Irish c. 1820. This beautiful paper would have been relatively expensive as it is printed in seven colours while the border, with nine colours, is even more elaborate.

53

IRISH ARTS REVIEW



IRISH PERIOD WALLPAPERS

4. CAsTLETOWN HOUSE. Block printed and stenciled wallpaper, early 18th century. These fragments, found in a bedroom, had been covered over when the room was

remodelled in the mid-l8th century. With long trails of flowers and foliage ren dered in roughly naturalistic style, the design is typical of the early 18th century.

5. BALLINTERRY HouSE, Co Cork. Block printed wallpaper, c. 1750-80. Wallpapers that imitated needlework were advertised in the 18th century and in this

example the border stripes are formed of criss-cross lines that are possibly intended as 'stitching'.

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6. BALLINTERRY HOUSE, CO Cork. Block prmted wallpapet. c.1750-80. The pattern of geometric motifs arranged in stripes is typical of the type of design &voured for

domestic settings in the later 18th century.

54

IRIShIJ ARTS REVIEW



1111SI I PEII -IOI-) WAIJLLPAPExRS

pasted to the back of a door

in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham during the restoration of that building in the 1970s (Fig. 1). It con

sists of several sheets of a

thick, coarsely-textured paper, painted green and printed with a design in dark

green flock. The design, which comprises a not-quite symmetrical arrangement of arabesques, floral motifs and

towers, is drawn in an

endearingly crude and unso phisticated manner. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a piece of nearly identical

paper which was found in Ivy

House, Worcester, and other examples of the same pattem

have been found in houses in

Lincolnshire and Wales.6 Architectural evidence reli ably dates the Worcester paper to the last decade of the seven

teenth century, but the same pattem can be seen on the engraved

trade card of the London manufacturer Abraham Price's 'Blue

Paper Warehouse' in the 1720s (Fig. 2). It seems that this pattem

was in use for at least forty years. It is tempting to think that the

paper used in the Royal Hospital was a locally made, pirated ver

sion of a popular English design. The earliest written record of Irish wallpaper production is a petition for patent rights lodged in

1692 by one Patrick Gordon, who claimed to have invented a new process for 'embellishing and beautifying' all types of paper by methods 'never yet known' in this country;7 there is no further

record of Gordon's activities, although several paper-stainers of the same name are recorded as

working in Dublin between 1750 and 1800.8 While there is

plenty of evidence that plagia

rism was accepted practice in the wallpaper industry, no direct evidence can be pro

duced to suggest that the Royal

Hospital paper was made here.

Nevertheless, there is at least a

possibility that it was the prod

uct of a fledgling local

industry.9 Documentary and physical

evidence of the wallpaper trade in Ireland in the first half

of the eighteenth century is

slight. The printed record in

the form of newspaper

advertising and trade direc tories only begins in the lat

ter half of the century. No

substantial examples of wall paper have survived, although recent discoveries of fragments in Castletown House, County Kildare and Marlay Park, outside Dublin, date from the early

years of the century, and

some fragments found near

Fermoy date from the mid

dle of the century. At

Castletown, some very small

pieces of a block-printed and stencilled paper were found during conservation

work to a first floor bedroom

in 1994 (Fig. 4). These frag

ments had been covered over when the room was

remodelled around the middle of the eighteenth century. The technique of block-print ing an outline in a dark colour and applying various colours

using stencils was common in the early eighteenth century and

was described as still current in Robert Dossie's The Handmaid to

the Arts published in 1758,'0 but it was superceded soon after by

the growing popularity of flocks and artistically superior tech niques employing multiple wooden blocks. Typically for the peri od, the pieces found in Castletown show long trails of flowers

and foliage rendered in a flowing, roughly naturalistic style.

Again, there is no direct evidence that the paper was made here,

although we might be tempted to think that in such a conspicu

ous showpiece of Irish skill as Castletown House the wallpaper

would have been obtained from local manufacturers.

Two tiny pieces of wallpa

per found some years ago by

the owner of Ballinterry House near Fermoy, County Cork, give an idea of the type

of pattern used in a more

domestic context in the mid

eighteenth century (Fig. 6). The first is printed with a pat

tern of small geometric motifs

arranged to form stripes and

printed in black, grey and

white over a blue ground.

Similar examples of 'blue

ground' papers dating from the mid-eighteenth century

7. PHILIP HUSSEY (17 13 -83): An Interior with a family. Oil on canvas, 62 x 76cm. (National Gallery of Ireland). The picture shows a fashionable Dublin interior of the

l1760s. The wallpaper on the walls is of a type known as 'pillar and arch' samples of which, printed in England, have been found in Maine, USA.

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8. SPRINGHILL, Co Armagh. Block printed wallpaper, c. 1760-70. The design of this paper, with classical ruins and gothic arches, is similar to the 'pillar and

arch' type seen in Fig. 6. 'Architect, Gothic and Landskip' papers feature in a number of newspaper advertisements of the time which perhaps refer to this

type of pattern.

55

1 I S H A vir s R i. . v i il



IRhSli PEIIIOI) WALLPAPIERS

have been found in numerous locations in England." The other

example is printed in blue, white and brown over a pink

ground, and uses sinuous, sprig-like motifs arranged in broad stripes which are bordered with narrower stripes formed of small, criss-cross lines, perhaps in imitation of a form of

needlework. Papers imitating various forms of needlework were often advertised and other examples which show white 'stitch ing' similar to that seen on the Ballinterry paper have been

found elsewhere.'2 Many English and Irish manufacturers of the

eighteenth century advertised papers printed to imitate 'the Irish stitch', which was a type of flame stitch - an example

appears on the same trade card of Abraham Price already men

tioned in connection with the Royal Hospital paper. It is at

least possible that the Ballinterry papers were made in Cork -

the existence of a wallpaper manufactory in Cork in the eigh

teenth century is shown by a notice placed in the Cork Evening

Post of 30 April 1773 by one Caesar Fanning, advertising his

'stamp'd paper manufactury on the Mall'.

A quite remarkable record of a fashionable

Dublin interior of the 1760s is the well-known conversation piece by Philip Hussey (1713-83) in the National Gallery of Ireland (Fig. 7). This

shows a couple with their two children and a

small dog in what is probably their drawing

room. The walls are covered with wallpaper of a

type known as 'pillar and arch', which became

fashionable in the 1760s and 70s. Examples of

this type of paper survive in New England,'" but

not in Ireland, although a related type of paper

survives in the gun room at Springhill, County

Armagh (Fig. 8). This consists of repeated vignettes of travellers pausing to contemplate a scene of classical ruins framed in gothic arches

executed somewhat crudely in three colours over a rich blue background. The term 'pillar

and arch' wallpaper is a modern one, and we

cannot be sure how these papers were described

at the time, although references in the 1760s to

'Architect, Gothic and Landskip' papers may well refer to the type seen at Springhill and in the Hussey paint

ing. John Gordon, at 'the Sign of Hibernia at Temple Bar', for

example, claimed to manufacture papers 'consisting principally of Gothic or Grecian Architecture, in due Perspective and pro portioned agreeable to their respective Orders' in 1762,'4 while in 1761 Elizabeth and Thomas Russell of Bride Street were

offering their 'much admired Architect, Gothic and Landskip Papers', also of their own making.'5

It is interesting to note how closely the cotton, linen and wall

paper printing trades were connected in the eighteenth century. Advertisements of the period seem to suggest that the use of the

same pattern on fabric and wallpaper was quite common, while

the eminent Irish calico printer and designer, William Kilburn,

earned extra income adapting chintz designs for Dublin paper

stainers in his spare time, while apprenticed to Jonathon Sisson, a linen and calico printer in Lucan.'6 In 1759, the widow

Margaret Ashworth appealed for a grant to enable her to expand

her manufactory at Donnybrook,'7 which produced not only paperhangings but also printed linens, cottons and calicos.

Thomas and Margaret Ashworth advertised their 'Donnybrook papers for hanging rooms' regularly from the 1750s until 1793,

although from 1757 the business was carried on solely by

Margaret Ashworth, her husband having been 'set upon by some

villains' and murdered while returning from Dublin to Donnybrook in December of that year.'8 In her appeal, Margaret

Ashworth claimed that her husband had 'brought the printing of

linen and cotton furniture in the chintz way to as great a perfec

tion as any imported from abroad, and was the only person in

this kingdom who matched all such patterns with paper for

hangings suitable thereto'. The record goes on to say 'that the

petitioner prints flock paper for hangings in as neat a manner

and as good colours as any imported, and under

takes to match any pattern or colours, either of

silk or worsted, as she dies her flocks the most

best and holding colours, and has a machine

going by water for cutting them.'

Plagiarism was evidently accepted practice in the wallpaper trade, many Irish paper-stainers

openly advertising their ability to copy any

imported design at a reduced price.'9 Ironically, it was the same William Kilburn who earned spare

cash pirating chintz designs for his Dublin employer who was later responsible, through vig orous lobbying, for the first Act of Parliament in

Britain to give protection through copyright to the designers and printers of cotton and linen,

although this Act, passed in 1787, did not

include designs for wallpapers. The evidence which has enabled us to identify

with complete certainty certain surviving wallpa pers as being of Irish manufacture relates to the

taxation of wallpapers. A duty was levied on all

wallpaper printed in England from 1712, but it was not until 1797,

when an 'Act for granting to his Majesty a Duty on Auctions, of

certain Manufactures of Glass and on Paper Hangings, and fur

ther duties on the Importation of Corks, Glauber Salts and Paper

Hangings'20 made it an offence 'to move off or sell or put up

unmarked paper-hangings', that a tax was imposed in Ireland.

The Act laid down stringent regulations designed to eliminate evasion of the duty and instituted a regime of inspection and con

trol which must, at the very least, have been severely disruptive to

the work of the paper-stainers. Premises could be inspected at any

hour of the day or night and in order to control collection of the

duty, all wallpapers were marked on the reverse with a stamp by

Excise officers (Fig. 9). In fact, two stamps were used: the first

9. ExciSE STAMP. From the reverse of a wallpaper found at Malahide Castle. Although

excise duty was levied on English wallpapers from the early 18th

century, such a tax was not imposed in Ireland until 1797. The 'First Account Taken'

stamp (with the word Erin under the royal crown) was applied to the paper before it was printed.

10. (Opposite). MALAHIDE CASTLE. Block printed wallpaper, c. 1820. This paper, which is by an Irish manufacturer, was discovered underneath the leather wall-hangings in the Library. A similar paper has been found at Ballygarth, Co Louth.

56

IRISH ARTS RE-VIEW



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bore the words 'First Account Taken', and was applied before the

paper was decorated; the second generally bore the words 'Duty

Charged On Paper Stained', and was applied to the finished wall

paper to show that the manufacturer had paid the duty. The

stamps were applied at approximate intervals of one yard. The

duty stamps used in Ireland were identical to the English ones,

with the important difference that in Ireland the word 'Erin' was

incorporated under the Royal crown. Thus, any wallpaper bearing

the Irish duty stamp can be assumed to have been made in Ireland

between 1797, when the Act was passed, and 1836. A further

implication is that eighteenth-century wallpaper found in Ireland which bears no duty stamp may be assumed to have been made in

Ireland before 1797, although a large enough sample of any one

paper would be needed to make it quite certain that the paper was

genuinely unmarked. A number of wallpapers have survived in Irish houses from the

late Georgian and Regency period - two spectacular examples at

Strokestown, County Roscommon (Fig. 12) and Newbridge, County Dublin (Fig. 11) form part of interiors which have

remained substantially unaltered since the time they were hung. Others have survived only as very small fragments, yet taken

together they show that this was an exciting period in wallpaper

design, where bright colours and bold designs were favoured.

Wallpaper bearing the Irish duty stamp was found in the

library of Malahide Castle during conservation work in 1984,

beneath the gilt leather hangings which now decorate the room2'

(Figs. 9 & 10). An extensive example of the same wallpaper has

also been found in Ballygarth Castle, County Louth, by John

O'Connell. This paper is block-printed in five colours in a design

which imitates gothic carved wood panelling. 'Gothic' wallpapers of various types had been in vogue since Horace Walpole com

missioned specially designed patterns for Strawberry Hill from 1753 onwards, and, as we have seen, Gothic papers were fre

quently mentioned by Dublin paper-stainers in their newspaper

advertisements from the 1760s. The Malahide paper, however, is different in concept from those earlier types. While early 'Gothic'

wallpapers relied on the adaptation of Gothic motifs to an all

over repeating pattern, the Malahide paper shows considerable

sophistication, in that the horizontal and vertical elements are

printed on separate sheets, an arrangement which allows great

flexibility in relating the design to the architecture of a particular

room. The pattern consists of vertically hung sheets bearing nar row stripes, and three different borders which were hung horizon

tally over these, combining neatly with the stripes to create the

illusion of carved panelling. The top and bottom borders were

used at the cornice and skirting, while the central border could

be positioned at any point along the vertical stripes. A further

element of sophistication is the fact that the wallpaper may be

hung either way up, enabling the printed 'shadows' to fall to the

left or to the right depending on the location of the nearest light

source, thus enhancing the illusionistic effect. This ingenious

arrangement appears to be unique among wallpapers of this

period, and looks ahead to the sophisticated French 'decors' of the

nineteenth century in which paper pilasters, panels and friezes could be combined to fill and enhance any architectural space.

The presence of the duty stamp places the Malahide paper after

1797. In fact, it seems likely that this wallpaper belongs to the

wave of Gothic revival which occurred in the first two decades of

the nineteenth century, and which produced in Ireland some of

Francis Johnston's best work in this genre. The style of the

Malahide paper matches closely some decorative motifs found on doors and pews in the Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle.

Renovation of an early eighteenth-century house at 17

Eustace Street in the Temple Bar area of Dublin in February

1995 revealed fragments of late Georgian wallpapers and bor

ders, one of which bears a duty stamp, although this is too faint

to ascertain whether it is of the Irish or English type. Two of

these wallpapers bear similar designs consisting of a small floral

pattern. The flowers and leaves of the pattern are formed by the

light-coloured ground of the paper, while the background is printed in a darker shade, and over-printed with a pin-ground

pattern of tiny dots. A very similar wallpaper supplied by the

London paper-stainer James Bate in 1807 survives in the

Rundlet-May House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.22 The shipping invoice for this paper also survives, describing the pat

tern as 'peach damask' and giving the price as I1I 4s lOp for

nine rolls. Given the Dublin manufacturers' practice of import ing and copying the latest English designs, it is at least possible

that the papers found in Eustace Street were made nearby.

Traditionally, the magnificent gold on yellow Regency wallpa

per and border in the library of Strokestown House, County

Roscommon (Fig. 12), was supposed to be of French origin, but

this is unlikely, given that the width of the pattern conforms to

the standard English and Irish width of twenty-one inches,

rather than the French standard width of nineteen inches.

Disappointingly, no duty stamps were found on the Strokestown

paper during recent conservation. This is confusing, as on a

paper of this date (around 1800) one would expect to find either

the English or the Irish stamp. Nevertheless, the Strokestown

wallpaper is a striking example of Regency panache, with its

extravagant gold snowflakes arranged in broad, glittering stripes,

framed within a broad, flocked border. A possible clue to its ori

gin may be the advertisement placed by Michael Boylan in 1797,

in which he announced the arrival of new 'Gold and Silver

Papers', at the same time advising customers to buy at once, as

the 'new duty' would commence in May.23

Among several early wallpapers found and saved by John

O'Connell during the restoration of Fota House, County Cork in

the early 1980s is one which bears the Irish excise stamp and

which probably dates from around 1820 (Fig. 3). This consists of

a paper and border, the paper bearing a pattern of blue roses

printed in seven colours scattered over a sub-pattern of narrow

sinuous stripes on a beige-coloured ground. Considering that the

number of colours used must have made this an expensive wall

11. (Opposite). NEWBRIDGE HOUSE, Co Dublin. Flock wallpaper and border, c.1791-1828. This wallpaper is in the drawing-room. It may have been hung by a James Dunn who is listed as a paper-stainer and house painter in Georges Street, Dublin and who supplied wallpapers for Newbridge.

59

litisii AirtrIs IIEVIEW



IRISI-I PERIOI) WALLPAUPERS

paper to produce, there is a

curious lack of harmony

between the flowers and the underlying stripes, almost as if two unrelated patterns had

been accidently conjoined. The border, on the other hand, shows the satisfying combination of technical and

artistic sophistication found in the best Regency wallpapers, employing nine block-printed colours with flock and over

printing on the flock to

achieve a luxuriant and tactile

richness.24

Less exuberant than the

Strokestown paper, but no less attractive, is the red flock

paper and border in the draw

ing room at Newbridge House, County Dublin (Fig. 11). Put

up during a phase of redecora

tion which lasted from 1791

until 1828, the precise date of

its hanging may or may not be

fixed by an entry in the Cobbe

family account books. In July

1791 a sum of eleven shillings

and four pence was paid as a

gratuity to 'Mr Dunn's paper

men for finishing the rooms

well'.25 This is a reference to

James Dunn, paper-stainer and house painter of 70 Great

Georges Street. listed in the

directories from 1775 to 1805. The entry unfortunately does not specify whether the payment relates to the red flock paper, and

traces of an earlier paper with a floral design on a yellow ground were found under the dado rail. The splendid carpet and damask

curtains (supplied by Mack and Gibton in 1828) seem so much

of a piece with the wallpaper that it is hard to imagine a hiatus

of over twenty-five years between them. Certainly, the style of

the border points more to the 1820s than to the 1790s.

The 1830s marked a watershed in the progress of the wallpaper

industry. Two developments, the availability of paper manufac tured in roll form and the advent of mechanised printing, which

occurred during this decade revolutionised the industry, concen trating production in large-scale factories, greatly reduced the cost and increased the availabilty of wallpapers.26 This decade saw the

end of a type of business which had existed in Dublin and other

cities in Ireland for a century - small family firms, designing and

printing wallpapers using techniques which had essentially remained unchanged since wallpapers were first made. Reading

between the lines of advertise ments and other records, we can imagine to some extent

how the trade operated. According to street directo ries, paper-stainers generally had two premises; it is likely

that one was a retail outlet in

a fashionable street while the

other was the 'factory'.27 The

number of staff needed to

make wallpaper need not have

been large. Menial tasks such

as gluing together the sheets of paper into rolls, laying the

ground colour and hanging the paper to dry could have

been performed by children, while a skilled block printer and one assistant could pro

duce thirty or forty rolls a day.

Pattern drawing and carving

the blocks may have been car

ried out 'in-house' in larger

enterprises such as the

Ashworths' or else bought from freelance artists such as

William Kilburn. What

emerges clearly from newspa

per advertisements is that the

main source of patterns in the

eighteenth century was imported English papers.

There seem to have been few,

if any, talented designers in Ireland. with the notable

exception of Kilbum. We do not know whether paper hangings

were printed to order or whether large stocks were held; it is likely

that the smaller firms printed to order while larger manufacturers - such as Michael Boylan who exported to America - printed

thousands of rolls at time. The paper-stainer was responsible for

arranging to have the paper hung, as the Cobbe account books at

Newbridge show, and many paper-stainers also describe them selves as house-painters in the trade directories. Paper-staining, though a highly specialised art, seems generally to have been car

ried on in conjunction with other, allied skills, either - as in the

case of the Ashworths - cotton and linen printing, or else, in the

majority of cases, other aspects of interior decoration such as house painting, gilding or floor cloth making. In the light of the

size of the wallpaper industry which existed in Ireland in the eigh

teenth and early nineteenth centuries, it is disappointing that only

two major papers - those from Fota and Malahide - can be identi

fied with certainity as being of Irish origin but it is to be hoped

that further examples will surface in the future.

l~ U

12. STROKESTOWN HOUSE, Co Roscommon. Block printed wallpaper, c. 1820. Traditionally believed to be French, it is more likely that this wallpaper from the

Library is either English or Irish although, confusingly, there is no duty stamp on

the reverse.

60 I R I S H A R T S R L V I -. W



IRIS-1 PERIOD WAlLPAPERS

A LIST OF PAPER STAINERS ACTIVE IN DUBLIN IN 1834 AND 1835 TAKEN FROM PETTIGREW AND OULTON'S DUBLIN DIRECTORY.

Patrick Boylan, House painter, Decorator, Gilder, Manufacturer of Stained Paper and Floor Cloth, 102 Grafton Street and 49 Lower Baggott Street (1834 and 1835)

John Carroll, House painter, paper stainer and decorator, 27 Henry Street (1834 and 1835).

James Carter, Paper stainer and house painter, 12 Anglesea Street, (1834 and 1835)

John Keely, Paper stainer, 25 Lower Stephen Street.(1834)

Robert Pearson, House painter and paper stainer, 31 Nassau Street and 22 Great Ship Street (1834);

moved to 18 Bachelor's Walk (1835) Edward Rounds, Paper-hanging manufacturer and house painter,

23 Mary Street, (1834 and 1835) Benjamin Smith, Paper-hanging manufacturer,

12 Upper Ormond Quay, (1834 and 1835) Samuel Smith, Paper stainer and house painter,

28 Nassau Street (1834, in 1835 listed as 'to his Majesty's Board of Works') John McDermott, Paper stainer,

6 North Earl Street, (1835)

A NOTE ON THE IDENTIFICATION AND RETRIEVAL OF EARLY WALLPAPERS.

It is worth devoting time to a wallpaper search before undertaking any alter ations or redecorating - small scraps of wallpaper are sometimes discovered during renovation of old buildings, behind panelling, pelmets, light switches, fitted bookcases or inside cupboards. 'Sandwiches' formed of many layers of

wallpaper may contain hidden treasures. Until the late 1830s, wallpaper was printed on lengths formed from individual sheets of hand-made, rag pulp

paper measuring approximately twenty-one inches by eighteen, glued togeth er by overlapping the edges. Often the hand-made sheet will show a distinc tive 'laid' pattern of fine, horizontal lines when held up to the light, and is characteristically strong. due to the quality of the rag pulp. Wallpaper made this way will show horizontal seams at intervals of about eighteen inches, although these may not always be obvious beneath the thick ground colour which was applied before printing. The paper used from the 1830s onwards is much thinner and weaker. Hand-blocked paper was printed with thick, dis temper paint which tends to flake distinctively, unlike the thinner inks used on machine printed papers, which tend to become absorbed into the surface of the paper. The damp conditions in so many Irish houses favour the removal of wallpaper, and it may be possible to ease the paper gently from the

wall using a flexible, flat tool such as a spatula or a plastic ruler. If the paper is well bonded to the wall, it may be enough simply to photograph it, rather than risk damage by attempting to remove it. Otherwise the paper will have to be well soaked, with water or a fifty-fifty mixture of alcohol and water, for as long as possible. The application of steam from a wallpaper steamer will help loosen stubborn paste, but may also entail the risk of damaging loose or fugitive pigment; if in doubt, test a small area before attempting to remove the best sample, or else seek help from a paper conservator. Once the paper has been removed, the back may be examined for traces of duty marks, which were generally stamped using black, or sometimes red, ink.

DAVID SKINNER is a wallpaper designer and manufacturer with specialist knowledge of historic Irish wallpapers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to Bridget Dunne, Administrator, Newbridge House, Anne McDonald for the article in the Irish Builder, Sally Woodcock for George Morton's History of Paperhangings.

1. E.A.Entwhistle: A Literary History of Wallpaper, (London, 1960), p.82. The Fourteenth Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into Excise

Establishment - Regulations under which Duties

on Stained Paper are Charged and Collected

(Copy in the Library, H.M. Customs and

Excise) is a 186 page document containing verbatim reports of the complaints of paper stainers against the wallpaper tax.

2. Ada K. Longfield, 'History of the Dublin

Wallpaper Industry in the 18th Century, foumal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. LXXVII, 1947, pp.101-120.

Nearly all of the information relating to eigh teenth century advertisements contained in

the present article was obtained from Ada

Longfield's history. 3. Dublin Evening Post, 13 March, 1783.

4. Pettigrew and Oulton, Dublin Directory, 1835. 5. George H. Morton, The History of

Paperhangings, Liverpool, 1875. An article in

the Irish Builder of 15 January 1872, describes

what appears to have been an isolated revival

of hand-painting 'through the enterprise of

Messrs. Wm Fry and Co of 28 Bachelor's

Walk, the present owners of one of the largest and best known paper-staining factories in

Dublin, formerly belonging to Mr James Boswell.' Messrs Fry's goods were 'all manufac

tured on the premises' and the author of the article praises the firm for the way in which

they 'set out upon rules laid out by such

authorities on mural decorations as Messrs

Ruskin, Owen Jones, Pugin, &c, in the pro duction of their papers.' The article mentions

in particular the firm's 'delicately tinted rich

satin papers, in which the various designs are

produced in the flat, without any attempt at

relief. It also priases their 'hall and staircase

papers' in 'imitation of ashlar painted walls.' 6. Charles C. Oman and Jean Hamilton,

Wallpapers: A History and Illustrated Catalogue

of the Collection of the Victoria and Albert

Museum, London, 1982, pp.92-93. 7. Col. State Papers (Domestic), 28 January,

1692, p.115. 8. Longfield, (as note 2). 9. The way the paper has been applied in this

case is unusual - small, irregularly sized pieces

of paper stuck to a door with a certain disre

gard for the logic of the pattern. Possibly we

are looking at leftover scraps from the decora tion of a grand room, used to enliven one of

the humbler quarters. 10. Robert Dossie, The Handmaid to the Arts,

2 Vols., (London 1758). Contains an unusual

ly precise description of the techniques and raw materials used in the production of paper

hangings. 11. Lesley Hoskins et al., The Papered Wall,

(London, 1994), pp.36-37. 12. ibid. The blue-ground paper from a house in

Wakefield, Yorkshire illustrated in The Papered Wall resembles the Ballinterry paper both in its

use of broad stripes of sinuous foliage alternating with narrower bands of ornament, and also in

the presence of white motifs which appear to

imitate a form of needlework.

13. R. Nylander, E. Redmond and P J Sander,

Wallpaper in New England, (Boston, 1986). A

paper of very similar design to that in the

Hussey painting was removed from the walls

of the stair hall of Sparhawk Hall in Kittery Point, Maine, during the 1950s. The tax

stamp on the reverse of this paper shows it was

printed in England between 1760 and 1770. Another example of a pillar and arch paper exists at the Timothy Johnson House,

Andover, Massachusetts

14. Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 13 April, 1762. 15. Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 4 November, 1761. 16. Patricia Butler, 'Designers of Distinction', Irish

Arts Review, 1990-1991, p.153 ff.

17. Vol. VI, 9 and 14 November, 1763.

18. Universal Advertiser, 17 December, 1757. 19. In Faulkner's Dublin Journal of 24 August 1762,

the 'Widow McCormick, Paper-Stamper ...

has lately imported a great Variety of new

English Papers - her chief End in importing

being to have it in her Power to select the best

Patterns, and copy from the Originals. ...'

20. Irish Statutes, 37 Geo 111, chap. 28

21. A large section of wallpaper was found cover

ing the jib door which leads to the strongroom from the library. The gilt leather hangings

may, confusingly enough, actually pre-date the

wallpaper. Of eighteenth century origin, they were already antique when they were put up some time in the nineteenth century.

22. Nylander et al., (as note 13), p. 112

23. Dublin Evening Post, 17 April, 1797

24. Also from Fota, but of later date, the delightfully eccentric shamrock paper and border still pre sent in one of the first floor bedrooms quite pos

sibly be one of the patterns produced by Wm Fry and Co of Dublin in the 1870s, both on the

grounds of patriotic appeal and stylistic adher ence to the 'rules laid down by Messrs Ruskin,

Owen Jones and Pugin'. The shamrock paper at

Fota shows precisely the strict disregard for

three-dimensional illusion which the Irish Builder

considered praiseworthy in Fry's patterns. 25. John Cornforth, Country Life, June, 1985 and

February, 1988

26. According to revenue records, production of

wallpaper in 1834 in Britain was 1,222,753 rolls. In 1851 this had risen to 5,500,00 and by 1874 had reached 32,000,000.

27. Robert Pearson 'House painter and paper stainer' had premises at 31 Nassau Street and

22 Great Ship Street in 1834; Patrick Boylan "House painter, Decorator, Gilder,

Manufacturer of Stained Paper and Floor

Cloth" was listed at 102 Grafton Street and 49 Lower Baggott Street in the same year.

Pettigrew and Oulton Dublin Directory, 1834.

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