Wallpapers in Historic Preservation
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In determining the age of wallpaper, the most reliable clues are the signs of the technology used to make it. Distinguishing handmade paper from machine-made, and traditional block printing from machine printing can help determine the date a paper was made. Information about the age of a wallpaper can, in some cases, help to establish the date of a wall or of architectural changes within a building.


Wallpaper manufactured before ca. 1835 consisted of small sheets of paper, pasted together to form the length long enough to extend from floor to ceiling. The special class of paper known as "hanging paper" was described in the 18th century as "made from the coarsest and cheapest rags and woolen stuff." It was rarely bleached white, but by modern standards it was of high quality and strong. The size of handmade paper was limited by the size of the mold. The mold was made up of two parts, a deckle and a frame, and was limited to a size that could be easily handled (figure 1).


The individual sheet that made up a "piece" or a roll of wallpaper were not uniform in size, but usually were smaller than 22 by 32 inches. Early in the 18th century, most paper "stainers" printed sheets which were then pasted individually to a wall. But by mid-century, the sheets were usually pasted together to form rolls before any coloring was applied. The standard length of a "piece" of joined wallpaper, formed from the individual sheets, was established by English excise officials at 12 yards and most were 23 inches wide.


If an edge of the paper can be uncovered, evidence of the handmade process might be indicated by the slightly ruffled or "deckle edge" caused by the uneven drainage of the water from the top half of the mold (called the deckle). Although for stationery and other fine papers, deckle edges are sometimes imitated on machinemade products, there is no evidence that this was ever done on hanging papers.







A few wallpapers, generally the more expensive ones, including Chinese papers, have been hand painted through all of wallpaper history (figure 17). The brush strokes were executed in water base colors. Stylistic analysis, rather than a knowledge of technology, will be of the greatest help in dating painted papers. Chemical analysis of the pigments used in the paints might serve to pinpoint datable pigments (some of which are discussed in the following section on block printing).


Last Updated: 26-Apr-2007