Wallpaper: Puzzling together the pieces

Lenox, MA (January 1, 2006) --

By Erica Huyler Donnis

Edith Wharton is best known to the general public as a novelist who chronicled New York society during the Gilded Age. But in the world of architecture she’s remembered as the co-author of a seminal design manual—and no friend of wallpaper. In The Decoration of Houses (1897), Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr., called for a renewed focus on symmetry and practicality in interior architecture while criticizing the excesses of their time—which in their opinion included wallpaper. In fact, they derided wallpaper as a fugitive, unsanitary material that detracted from architectural lines. “A papered room,” they declared, “can never, decoratively or otherwise, be as satisfactory as one in which the walls are treated in some other manner.” Imagine the surprise then when multiple wallpaper fragments appeared at The Mount, the house that Wharton designed and built for herself in Lenox, Massachusetts.

During the course of ongoing restoration work, my colleagues and I uncovered fragments of 11 different wallpaper patterns at The Mount. Many were concealed by cornice-level moldings installed immediately after the paper was initially hung, a common practice then for high-end jobs that guaranteed a perfect trim line at the ceiling. Other pieces were hidden beneath fixtures such as mirrors, bathroom cabinets, and supports for shelves and towel bars that were added by later owners of the house, who also stripped paper from accessible wall surfaces. While some paper fragments stretch across the wall for several feet, others are thin strips only 1” or 2” high. Could these papers really have been selected by Edith Wharton, the wallpaper critic, or were they installed after she left The Mount? To solve this mystery, we conducted some research, called upon several experts in the field, and used some readily accessible methods and resources that can help many old-house owners shed light on their own historic wallpaper discoveries.

Making Historical Connections

Our first tactic was to place The Mount’s wallpapers within the context of technologies and trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because Wharton decorated The Mount between 1901 and 1902 and resided there periodically until 1911, we knew that any paper she would have installed must have been on the market at that time. First we had four experts in wallpaper history in the United States examine samples of many of the fragments we found. Their knowledge helped us date the papers based on the popularity of various paper styles, colors, and types, as well as installation methods used during the time period.

Next we consulted samples of historic papers as well as pattern books in the collections of two museum organizations and wrote letters of inquiry to several others. Historic New England possesses an extensive collection of wallpapers with New England associations dating from 1750 to 1950, so we scrolled through hundreds of examples on their searchable, online wallpaper catalogue (www.historicnewengland.org/wallpaper/). Because the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum maintains the largest collection of wallcoverings in the United States we viewed slide after slide of the papers and pattern books contained in their collection. Although we held out little hope of finding even one exact match for a pattern at the Mount, we hit the jackpot when we found a 1910 pattern book produced by the B.A. Cook Company of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It contained a sample of the same Gothic-window tile paper found in one of The Mount’s guest bathrooms.

Our research led us to conclude that most of The Mount’s fragments were representative of several different types of high-quality papers commonly available from the mid- to late-19th century to the first two decades of the 20th century. Although the only wallpaper I was able to specifically identify turned out to be American, it is possible that some of the other patterns found at The Mount were French or English due in part to the widths of the sheets (English papers tended to be around 22” wide) and the high quality of the designs. This possibility is reinforced by the fact that Wharton purchased many of her home furnishings in Europe.

Sanitary Scrutiny

At The Mount, we uncovered fragments of several so-called “sanitary” papers, made with oil-based inks and usually coated with varnishes for a high-gloss finish that protected them from water stains, dirt, and dust. Because these papers—which became widely available in the second half of the 19^th century—were intended to be more washable, they were advertised as appropriate for high-traffic spaces like kitchens and service hallways. Sanitary wallpapers were popular in patterns simulating the look of ceramic tiles, as they provided a cheaper alternative to the real thing.

At The Mount varnished sanitary papers depicting tiles surfaced in bathrooms adjoining the main bedrooms and include a blue and white faux Dutch Delft tile pattern and the B.A. Cook Company pattern of Gothic windows spaced by flat blue tiles in the Arts & Crafts style. A third sanitary paper depicts six repeating tiles, each containing a delicate sprig of carnations, tulips, and chrysanthemums, among other flowers. This paper was artfully installed by a skilled hanger who dropped each successive sheet to provide varied lines of flowers across each horizontal line.

Looking closely at the surfaces of our sanitary tile papers, we discovered the original high-gloss finishes were most intact in areas that had always been hidden behind cornice-level moldings. Sanitary papers that had been exposed to light, dust, dirt, and contact with residents were more degraded.

In a guest bedroom, we also discovered a blue-green wallpaper fragment that had a fuzzy nap not unlike a paper grocery bag. This was identified to be a type of ‘ingrain’ or ‘cartridge’ paper, so-called because it was dyed in pulp form (literally “in the grain”) before the papers were pressed into rolls, giving them a unique texture and soft color running through the paper stock, instead of just on the surface. Popular from the 1880s through the 1920s, ingrain papers gave rooms a soft, rich backdrop, adding atmosphere that enlivened walls without a distinct decorative pattern.

A Paper Mystery

We had been puzzled at first by a swath of tissue-thin, light brown paper found behind an original mirror in Edith Wharton’s bedroom. Rather dull to our eyes aesthetically and so thin that the plaster behind it remained visible, it seemed an odd choice for wallpaper. The mystery of its appeal was solved when we discovered it was installed with a gap of about a 1/16^” between strips instead of the butt seam or slight overlap typically used for finish papers; this gap helped identify it as a type of lining paper. Lining papers provided extra support for high-quality finish papers such as French block-printed patterns, which were often quite delicate. Because very high-end papers were expensive, they sometimes moved with owners to a new house; lining papers also made such removal easier. Installing lining papers with a gap between strips ensured that seams would not show beneath the fine decorative paper applied over it.

With our fragment identified as a lining paper, we progressed to the next logical question: what exactly did Edith Wharton pick for finish paper over this lining? We eagerly examined the room for evidence, gently pulling up sections of the chair rail, window frames, and even the parquet floor in the hopes that a small fragment might have been trapped in place. Unfortunately, these hunts proved to be unsuccessful, and no evidence was found. We now know that Wharton had wallpaper in her bedroom, but we remain unsure of what that paper looked like.

We are currently in the midst of carrying out our second level of research: microscopic analysis. This step should pinpoint definitively whether these papers were installed by Edith Wharton or by a later owner of The Mount. Because Wharton was the first owner of the house, her selections would have to be the first layer of decorative treatment found on the walls. We have carefully removed small samples of selected fragments along with their underlying plaster and examined them under a microscope to determine if other earlier layers of paint and paper lay beneath them. We have concluded that the fragments examined to date are indeed the first decorative wall treatments, separated from the original plaster only by coatings of wallpaper glue and, in some cases, lining paper.

Contradicting Advice

Our insights have confirmed that while Edith Wharton publicly decried the use of wallpaper, she ignored her own advice when it came to decorating The Mount. Substantial evidence points to her use of wallpaper throughout the house’s secondary spaces, including bedrooms, bathrooms, and service areas. We may never know exactly why she changed her mind about the decorative value of wallpaper, but we can guess. In some cases, papers were less expensive than other wall treatments, which may explain the use of sanitary papers depicting tiles instead of ceramic tiles themselves.

Wharton was certainly wealthy by contemporary standards, but she was no Vanderbilt. She made several cost-cutting decisions as she built The Mount. In addition, she was known to be generous to her employees, and may have given upper-level staff some latitude in selecting decorative treatments for the spaces they would use. Interestingly, Wharton’s 1934 autobiography stated that friends often accused her of “not applying to the arrangement of my own rooms the rigorous rules laid down in The Decoration of Houses.”

Future Patterns

Now that we know more about the style, composition, and probable dates of The Mount’s wallpaper fragments, we’re better prepared to make decisions about their possible restoration. We intend to preserve representative samples of all of the wallpaper fragments uncovered in order to document the history of the house’s wall finishes over time. We also hope to reproduce some of the patterns that were positively identified as Edith Wharton’s original selections in order to restore The Mount’s interiors to reflect the time of her residence accurately. Lastly, we want to ensure that we can protect the fragments that remain on the wall during periods of active restoration work. Fortunately, we were awarded a grant to bring in a conservator specializing in the care of wallpaper.

Our work with The Mount’s wallpaper fragments continues as we move forward with interior restoration. At present, we are reproducing the floral tile sanitary paper and the blue/green cartridge paper to help restore and refurnish Edith Wharton’s bedroom suite. The fragments found in other spaces await further research and conservation. Eventually, we hope that all of the rooms that were once decorated with wallpaper will come alive with reproductions of patterns approved by Edith Wharton—the critic with a secret soft spot for wallpaper.

Erica Huyler Donnis is The Mount’s consulting Curator of Collections.