The design having been drawn in outline, on paper pasted together of the size required, the paper was then divided into parts of a suitable size, and given to the carver or wood engraver, to cut the designs on blocks of pear-tree, much in the same manner as at present. The outline thus cut was printed in ink with a press, resembling that then used by the letter-press printers, on separate sheets of paper. When dry, they were then painted and relieved with different colours in _distemper_, and afterwards joined together, so as to form the required design. The author then adds, that grotesques and panels in which are intermingled flowers, fruits, animals, and small figures, have up to this time succeeded better than imitations of landscapes, or other tapestry hangings, which are sometimes attempted, and refers to article 61 of the French laws in 1686, which confirms the statutes published in 1586, 1618, and 1649, in which rules are given as to what kind of presses, &c. are to be used by the dominotiers, and prohibiting them under heavy penalties from printing with types.
Recurring to the subject as connected with this country: in the year 1754, a Mr Jackson, a manufacturer of paper-hangings at Battersea, published a work on the invention of printing in chiaro oscuro, and the application of it to the making of paper-hangings, illustrated with prints in proper colours. This book is a sort of advertisement of the kinds of papers made, and the mode of manufacture employed by him. He adopted a style of paper-hangings executed with blocks in chiaro oscuro, in imitation of the most celebrated classic subjects.
To use his words, “The persons who cannot purchase the statues themselves, may have these prints in their places, and thus effectually show their taste. ’Tis the choice and not the price which discovers the true taste of the possessor; and thus the Apollo Belvedere, the Medicean Venus, or the Dying Gladiator, may be disposed of in niches, or surrounded with a mosaic work in imitation of frames, or with festoons and garlands of flowers, with great taste and elegance; or, if preferred, landscapes after the most famous masters may be introduced into the paper. That it need not be mentioned to any person of taste how much this way of finishing with colours, softening into one another with harmony and repose, exceeds every other kind of paper-hanging hitherto known, though it has none of the gay, glaring colours in patches of red, green, yellow, and blue, &c. which are to pass for flowers and other objects in the common papers.”