Mythological gallery

Information

A rare complete example along with the one in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, this wallpaper is the work of the Dufour factory, after a drawing attributed to Xavier Mader.  After training in Lyon, Joseph Dufour opened his first factory in Mâcon in 1797, and eventually moved to Paris in 1808.  For this Mythological Gallery, strips of paper are manufactured from sheets of around 50 by 40 centimeters.  They are then “darkened” with a background colour and then printed using engraved plates, with each pattern and colour requiring its own plate.  The Mythological Gallery is finished with a border of “flocked” patterns (imitating the look of velvet), created by gluing the shreds from cutting cloth, hence its name.  

The décor of this wallpaper is composed of several scenes and mythological themes.  The quality of the printing, thanks to subtle work in six shades of grey imitating stone, makes it possible to render the true monumentality of the characters and is perfectly adapted to the purity of the neoclassical design.  Six scenes on a bright emerald-green background, separated by strips of burnished brown, make up this wallpaper, and represent the Vengeance of Ceres, Apollo, and Phaethon, Venus and Diana, the Muses, the Judgment of Paris, and the Weather and the Seasons, all scenes reflecting the era’s taste for Antiquity, its references, its myths and characters.