Wallpaper sample approx. 50 cm of the wallpaper Nästgårds, brown.

Typical wallpaper from the second half of the 19th century with an elegant medallion pattern in a single-color print. The wallpaper was in a strong ultramarine blue color against a beige background in the lower hall of the Nästgårdshuset in Gysinge, probably put up in 1887. Here is the same pattern in brown, which is another typical variant of a single-color print from the time. The wallpaper is printed in the old glue dye technique on unprimed paper and the wallpaper therefore has a unique luster and thinness that is not available in other wallpaper prints. In return, an unprimed wallpaper is slightly, but only slightly, more fragile in the wallpapering process.

Wallpaper sample 50 cm.

The beautifully undulating lines of Art Nouveau meet soft tones of green and cream. Around the turn of the 20th century, wallpaper patterns like these became extremely popular thanks to their ability to create bright and cozy rooms.

Inspiration was drawn from the new idioms developed in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, among other places. The motif of foliage on elegantly curved stems is very characteristic of Art Nouveau.

The wallpaper was found in one of the rooms in the workers’ barracks in Gysinge and has now been reprinted.

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.