Description

When, in connection with the restoration of one of the attics at Wirums Säteri in Småland, we found the first flake of the wallpaper “Förmaket”, we thought we had found a real 18th century wallpaper. The diagonal checkered pattern with a small flower sprig in each square breathes very typical rococo. The flaming gray glue paint base also gives an unmistakable feeling of hand printing. Everything in our 18th century theory was right – until we found flag number two and saw that the pattern was printed on cellulose paper and not on paper made of cloth rag, as it should have been if it was genuine 18th century. The wallpaper also turned out to be made on a roll, not on glued sheets of paper, as in the 18th century. Today we know better. “Förmaket” is a wallpaper from around 1860, but of a low-key, elegant diagonal-patterned type that became popular already 100 years earlier – and is still one of the wallpaper printers’ favorite patterns. What distinguishes Gysinge’s wallpaper from other reprints is the uneven, handmade impression and the shifting ground color. Early machine printing art, one could define the wallpaper as.