Design for wallpaper featuring blue shields surmouted by crowns 1830 - 1897

This is Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise’s wallpaper design, made with watercolor, graphite, and ink. When we think of wallpaper, it’s usually as a mass-produced item, churned out for a consumer market. But this is a handmade design, full of care. The artist has meticulously rendered the pattern of shields, crowns, and stylized floral motifs. The deep blue and gold evoke royalty, and the brown, which fills the negative space, forms the darker outlines that make the brighter colors pop. Consider the labor involved here: each line drawn, each area of color carefully laid down. While this design could be industrially reproduced, its origin is in an intimate act of making. In its own way, this small artwork challenges our traditional notions of design and craft, labor and aesthetics, inviting us to value the skill involved in its creation, even if it was intended for mass production.