This is another landscape paper that has been given a slightly different treatment. The viewer is looking through a dense grove of trees, into a clearing of some sort, followed by more trees in the distance. The colors in the foreground are darker and more saturated, getting lighter as they recede into the distance, creating...

Landscape views have always been a popular theme on wallpaper, and with good reason. For the urban migration during the Industrial Revolution it allowed people to bring some country with them. For rooms with few windows or no view, the wallpapers provided one. The trompe l’oeil aspect of landscape papers also visually enlarged the size...

London Transport posters played an indispensable role in the field of graphic design, particularly in the 1920s and 30s. In 1908, Frank Pick assumed responsibility for London Transport’s publicity and commissioned designs from internationally known artists as well as promising newcomers. Among them, a talented American poster artist and graphic designer, Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954),  helped...

This wall hanging, designed and woven by Maria Kipp, brings to mind an abstracted Los Angeles landscape. Hazy with mauve and pink smog, the horizon glitters with gold metallic strips of weft, reminiscent of the sun peeking from between the clouds. Its soft palette, hints of structural dimensionality and use of abstracted forms are typical...

This style of paper is referred to as a figural landscape or landscape figures. Wallpapers in this genre usually contain three to four different landscape views, quite often centered on a theme. They can focus on harbor views, the hunt, or more humble scenes such as this one, which might be called The Homecoming, or...

This cotton panel displays the signature elements that have come to make Coogi a recognizable brand worldwide. With asymmetrical lines, a variety of different textures, and a plethora of bright colors this fabric offers all the energetic vibrancy associated with the Coogi brand. For many people today the name Coogi calls to mind the particular...

This fan’s printed scenes of the Ottoman Empire are after the English architect and landscape painter Thomas Allom (1804-1872), whose drawings were engraved and published in the 1840 book, Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. [1] The center image is of the Arut Bazaar, a female slave market in Constantinople....

This French sidewall is machine-printed on a neutral ground and depicts a pastoral scene framed by leaves and vines. This type of wallpaper, called a “landscape figure,” originated in France and was extremely popular during the early nineteenth century. These formulaic patterns were composed of rows of two or three repeating vignettes with pastoral or...

Henry and Eleanor Kluck, the design duo known as Elenhank, drew inspiration for Forest from the northern Indiana landscape surrounding their home. When the fabric panels were hung as curtains or wall coverings, the pattern would repeat across large expanses to envelope a space as if it was a woodland glade. This is a continuation...

Murals became a fashionable wall decoration in the mid-twentieth century. Murals differ slightly from scenic wallpapers in that most were designed to cover a single wall, or to separate or highlight a section of a larger wall, where scenic wallpapers were designed to run continuously around a room. Many mural designs could also be continuous...

From the eighteenth century, painted fans were one of the most popular souvenirs for any grand tourist visiting Italy. In this period, fans were part of the complex network of courtly behavior and aristocratic social codes, and they were also indispensable elements for coquetry. Such fans were made with a variety of materials such as...

This French sidewall, produced ca. 1845, was block-printed in grisaille tones on a light gray background. Vignettes of daily life in a country village ride magic carpet-like atop grassy meadows. The vignettes are framed by the foliage and trunks of large trees, and two columns each feature alternating pairs of vertically repeating scenes. The left-hand...

While slated to become a lawyer like his father and two brothers in the family firm of Weeks & de Forest, Lockwood de Forest as a young adult aspired to a career in painting. He was related by marriage to the celebrated and very successful landscape painter Frederic E. Church and the de Forest family socialized...

The rapid industrialization and urbanization that occurred in the United States during the mid-20th century made many Americans feel nostalgic for a more bucolic way of life. Landscape wallpaper was a cheap and easy way for people to bring a bit of country living to the city. Equally eager for glimpses of nature were the...

Ships, precariously tethered to mountain tops by garlands, hover over a landscape of pure fantasy in this graphite drawing by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808).  Pillement was known for his imaginative prints featuring chinoiserie designs that were in essence European variants of Japanese and Chinese motifs. Pillement was a prolific artist who operated in...