Author: emilyewen

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Image shows an ethereal view of Windsor Castle seen through a clearing in the trees. Please scroll down for a further description of this wallpaper.
Shades of Windsor
Wrapped in a warm summer haze, a pair of birds, at the center of the composition, overlook a flowing stream surrounded by a flower filled landscape. The famed Windsor Castle idly appears in the background, surveying the quiet scene below. Hushed yellows and greys, in addition to the creamy white background, create an almost ethereal...
Image shows a stylized camel caravan crossing the desert. Please scroll down for a discussion of this image.
Rivers in the Desert
Dunes flow over one another in waves as caravans of people and camels navigate the treacherous terrain of the Sahara. The oscillating lines that the figures stand on are reminiscent of a winding river or the ocean surf. While this composition is relatively simple, its whimsical elements, such as the faces of the camels and...
Image contains a repeat of wallpaper with large flowering tree with stylized birds, butterflies and cobwebs. Please scroll down for a more complete description of this image.
Out of the Cobwebs
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. When describing wallpaper, Marthe Armitage, the designer of this paper, has said “Wallpaper… should be seen and not heard. It should provide a background in a home, and should not make you feel you have to look...
Image is a wallpaper with a non-directional pattern of stars, shooting stars, crescent moons and the planet Saturn, printed in navy blue and white on a light blue ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Looking At a Star
In celebration of Women’s History Month, March Object of the Day posts highlight women designers in the collection. Long before the space race and the potential of space travel, humans have always been fascinated with the stars as tools for better understanding our world and our place in it. Naturally, artists and designers also take...
Logos, Logos Everywhere
As citizens of the twenty-first century, we are accosted constantly by advertising; by billboards on the highway, posters on the street, and through our media outlets at home. As a society certain symbols of advertisement, known as logos, have become in grained into our collective conscious. You would be hard pressed to find someone who...
A Battle in New Jersey
The “Views of the American War of Independence” was block printed by the French manufacturer Zuber & Cie starting in 1852 over the background of their prior scenic wallpaper called “Views of North America”; sections of both papers are housed at the Cooper Hewitt. In a complete set there are thirty-two panels, each individual panel...
Cool Weather Calm
With the hustle and bustle of the holiday season coming to an end, and the end of the year upon us, it is always nice to have a moment of reflection and calm before jumping into the New Year. This wallpaper, aptly entitled “The Birches”, seems to echo such a sentiment with its cool color...
Silver and Gold
As the holidays draw near and decorations go up we begin to see the traditional hues of red and green, and their counterparts, silver and gold, appear around every corner. In accordance with this timing, it is appropriate to examine wallpapers that really exemplify this vein. Ceiling papers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth...
Natural Abstraction
Full of life, movement, and color, this design for a wallpaper is a reproduction of Chinese wallpaper by one of the leading antique and wallpaper scholars of her day, Nancy McClelland. McClelland is known for her attention to detail and meticulous research that went into each of her reproductions. She was also a successful interior...