PAPER HANGINGS, a term applied (somewhat incorrectly) to the stained, or rather coloured, paper pasted against the walls of apart triente, itc. The word " hangings" was originally and properly applied to the woven or embroidered tapestry with which the walls of rooms in Inane/ono were covered. From the time necessary for their production, these were too costly for any classes but the wealthy. About 200 years ago, however, a mode was devised of printing or painting a — — pattern on sheets of paper, and pasting them against the walls of a room ; these are " peper-hangings," and they have greatly contributed to the comfort and cleanliness of domestic apartmeute. Before, how ever, actual paper hangings were adopted, there was a sort of inter mediate plan by which textile material was employed. Jerome Lanyer, about the year 1639, produced what he called tonture de faille. This was cloth, on which a design was drawn In varnish or foot oil. A collection of flock, or powdered fragments of woollen, was at hand, different colours in different boxes ; the flock was sprinkled on the cloth in a peculiar manner by the finger and thumb, and thus an attempt was made to imitate costly tapestries and brocades, When the cheaper material, paper, came to be employed, the device or pattern was printed in outline, with ink, on separate sheets of paper ; the sheets were then joined edge to edge by paste, and the device was filled in by hand with distemper colour. The patterns were chiefly panels, containing groups of fruits, flowers, animals, small figures, grotesques, &c. About seventy years ago, there was a celo breted manufactory of paper-hangings at Chelsea, belonging to the Messrs. Echardts, where the beet work was (lobe. They employed many tasteful artists; they printed on silk and linen as well na paper ; and the original blocks of some of their designs are still preserved.
As at present conducted, there are three modes of producing the required device. L Wooden blocks are carved, representing in relief the outlines of the figure; an impression is taken from these blocks, and the device is completed by painting with a pencil. 2. A sheet of paper, leather, tin, or copper, is cut out into the required device, and laid on the paper to be stained ; a brush, dipped in a coloured pigment, and worked over the surface of the perforated plate, conveys the pig ment through all the perforations, and forms a pattern on the paper.
3. A block is carved for each of the colours to bo employed, and an impression from all the blocks in succession fills up the design on the paper. The first of these modes is too slow and costly for ordinary use ; the second produces imperfect outlines, and is now chiefly em ployed (under the name of stencilling) to paint a pattern on the plaster walls of a room, without using paper-hangings; the third, which is the mode almost exclusively employed at the present day, we will now describe.
The paper is printed in pieces twelve yards long, and to produce these it was formerly necessary to paste sixteen or eighteen sheets of paper together at the edges. But machine-made paper now allows the paper stainer to procure the whole length in one piece. A piece is laid out on a long }smell, and the ground-colour applied, consiatiug of pounded whiting tinted by the addition of some pigment, and liquefied by the aid of melted size; this is laid on with large brushes. When the paper is dry, it is ready to receive the print. Let us suppose the pattern to contain three colours,—red, dark green, and light green, besides the ground or general tint. Three blocks are carved in hard wood, the uncut parts (as in a common wood-block) representing the device; each block is intended for one colour only ; and care is taken that all three shall register or combine their devises properly, when printed. The blocks are of pear-tree, mounted on pima. The three pig ments being mixed with melted size, in separate vessels, one of them (say red) is spread with a brush on a wooden frame covered with leather or flannel : the proper block is laid face downwards on the wet paint, takes up a layer of it, and imparts it to the sipper, on which it is imme diately pressed. Another similar impression is made adjoining the first; and so on, till the whole piece has been printed with the red device. 'When dried, the paper goes through the same process a second time, with the substitution of a different colour and n dillerent block from those before used. A third prucess with the other shade of green finishes the printing. Each block is furnished with small pins at the corners, by the aid of which the successive impressions are made to correspond properly. Numerous colours are sometimes employed in one pattern, and generally speaking there must be as many blocks as there are colours.