Info About Silk Wallpaperings

Silk wallpaperings, once an exclusive domain of the Chinese Imperial Family, spread to the estates of a wider Mandarin nobility in the 16th and 17th Century. Western Explorers from Portugal, Spain and England were the first to discover and then introduce the silk designs to Europe in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Together with rich cargoes of porcelain, tea and spices, hand-painted silk wallpapers ignited a wave of interest amongst the European nobility in Oriental luxe and the attractions of Asian design.

A vigourous trade soon followed between China, Japan and the West, and traders such as the British East India Company, Jardine Matheson and Sassoon & Co became larger players in the lucrative trade of financing shipments of luxury goods such as woven silk textiles and ceramics to the United Kingdom in the 18th Century.

Elegant Silk wallpaperings depicting flowers, birds and butterflies became the rage of the day amongst 18th and 19th Century European Royal families, and became a de rigeur standard for interior design in palaces and summer estates during this period. With the gradual shift of wealth and power to the New World, silk wallpapering followed, and the look became closely associated with the rise of the railroad and manufacturing dynasties of the Vanderbilt, Huntington and Carnegies (many fine examples of silk wallpapering still exist in Newport and other Eastern US historic homes).

Recently, with the focus on the organic, hand-made, and unique, Western interior designers have rediscovered hand-painted wallpapers with a fresh passion. Vogue, Elle Interiors, House and Garden, and Time magazine have featured silk wallpapers in a number of interior design features and the designs are now gracing a large number of 5 star restaurants, boutique hotels and private residences in the United Kingdom, France and United States.