After four years of research, the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design has opened up a fascinating wallpaper collection dating from 1770-1840 amassed by French artist Charles Huard and his wife, American-born writer, Frances Wilson Huard. Emily Banas, RISD curator of a new exhibition about the collection, enthralled an online audience with her talk for WHS on February 12th, detailing the story of this enterprising couple and their passion for French wallpaper.
Frances Wilson Huard and Charles Huard, second and third from left
Médiathèque de l'Architecture et du Patrimone/Charenton-le-Pont/France. © Ministère de la Culture / Médiathèque du Patrimoine, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY
It was an encounter with a French scenic wallpaper in a Boston museum, most likely Zuber & Cie’s ‘Views of North America’, that inspired the couple to start the collection. Frances had met Charles in Paris in the early 1900s when she was studying music and he was making a living from his drawings. Together they had endured the First World War there, recording their experiences in two publications and travelling around the USA raising money for French hospitals.
In the 1920s they met Nancy Vincent McLelland, one of America’s foremost interior decorators and a buyer for a department store. With their in-depth knowledge of France, the Huards sourced and exported French antiques for Nancy, including many wallpapers, and started their own private collection of papers, wood blocks and design drawings.
Flocked Wallpaper Border, 1820-1830. Mary B. Jackson Fund. RISD Museum, Providence, RI.
Emily explained that the objectives of the exhibition were to present less familiar wallpapers such as scenics, overdoor panels and dados and to explain the technical complexity of woodblock printing. Every colour in a woodblock print requires its own block and some of the wallpapers in the Huard collection had required as many as 20 blocks for their designs. It was striking to see how contemporary some of the designs appeared. One vibrant geometrical, seen below, has been recreated by Adelphi Paper Hangings, resulting in an extraordinarily modern wallcovering.
Manufacture Bon, French, Wallpaper, 1799. Mary B. Jackson Fund. RISD Museum, Providence, RI.
The exhibition shows the extraordinary breadth of creativity within 18th- and 19th-century wallpaper design, from luxurious hand-painted Chinese imported paper, which because of its costs was pasted onto lining paper, to multi-use domino papers whose small regular designs made them equally suitable for lining boxes. A couple of rare design drawings on oiled paper are included – these were papers impregnated with oil to enable the transfer of a design from one medium to another for immediate use.
Atelier Boulard, Domino Paper (Papier Dominoté); Blue and white Domino with floral sprays, 1810-1812. Mary B. Jackson Fund. RISD Museum, Providence, RI.
The exhibition audience is introduced to wallpaper conservation through the display of two fragments of a border of rose garlands cleverly joined together and some panels which imitate plasterwork enclosing grisaille pictures. As Emily stressed, the intent was to show the historic use of these papers and not to make them look new.
Arthur et Robert , Wallpaper Bandeaux and Pilasters, ca. 1785. Mary B. Jackson Fund. RISD Museum, Providence, RI.
Intriguingly, the Huards used to mount wallpapers onto canvas on stretchers and display fragments in frames as art for their walls. Delightful though this was, the RISD curators needed to remove them for safe storage in flat acid-free folders, making the collection more accessible.
A case of fragments reveals exceptional techniques such as satination (polishing an area of print to a high sheen) and flocking. The curators also devised a clever method of attaching wallpapers to a wall with magnets in a beautiful display which enables visitors to see the detail of the printing close up.
Were it not for the foresight of the Huards, who offered to sell the collection to RISD in 1934 to save it from the approaching aggression in Europe, these important papers would not be available to view today. We are so grateful to Emily for her talk and hope that some of our readers may be able to make it to Rhode Island to see these treasures for themselves.
Lucy Ellis
‘The Art of French Wallpaper Design’ runs at the RISD Museum until May 11 2025.