What could be more attractive than a mystery - onlythe ability to lift at least some kind of veil over her. It was this secret that the distant Chinese Empire remained for the inhabitants of Europe in the 18th century. Fabulously rich, shrouded in the haze of centuries, closed to outsiders - she turned in the minds of Europeans into the image of an ideal country. Made in Cnina One of the first to succumb to the exotic charm of China was Queen Elizabeth I of England and allowed pirates to plunder Spanish and Portuguese ships returning home with overseas treasures. With her light hand, England, and after her, the whole of Europe was seized by a real madness, which received the French name "chinoiserie", or Chinese. Hitherto unseen porcelain, lacquerware, silk, furniture, screens and wallpaper with characteristic motifs have become the latest in fashion. Not a single palace, not a single noble house could manage then without at least one "" room. Chinese pavilions topped with pagoda roofs were built on wealthy estates. And even the gardens were laid out in the Chinese manner with exotic plants exported from the Middle Kingdom. 
Chinese style in the interior
Chinese-style wallpapers
- Photo 1. Askek from the Chinoiserie collection, hand-painted on silk, de Gournay.
- Photo 2. Wallpapers Chelsea from the collection of Chinoiserie, hand-painted on silk, de Gournay.
- Photo 3. Fragment of the fabric of Zhuyi, 1760-1764. The new technology glorified the manufactory in Jouy.
- Photo 4. Fragment of the decorative painting of the Chinese salon, the palace of Stromsholm, Sweden, the second half of the XVIII century.
- Photo 5. Paper wallpaper, hand-painted in the spirit of the English "chinoiserie", 1770.
Desired trophy One of the most honorable places ina number of "truly Chinese values" were hand-painted wallpapers. The original scripts cost a lot of money, they were waited for, they were "chased". The English mistakenly called these wallpapers Indian, because they were imported by the East India Company, which in 1600 received from the Queen the right of monopoly trade with the Celestial Empire. Countess Kildeyr wrote to her husband in London in 1775: "Dear, do not forget about Indian wallpapers and if you see those that you like, buy! I would not assign more than three rooms to this, although you know that we must do four. " Poor countess! One feels that if it were her will, she would have covered the whole house with "Chinese beauty", but because of the fear of appearing to her husband too wasteful she did not dare to say this directly. The Chinese invasions were surrendered without a fight by European monarchs. To make sure of this, you can visit Dottinholm (Sweden), Royal Brighton Pavilion (England), Sanssouci (Potsdam, Germany), Charlottenburg (Berlin), Oraeenbaum (St. Petersburg). How are we in the garden? On overseas wallpaper depicted birds , trees with bizarrely bent branches and flowers unfamiliar to Europeans. Sir Joseph Banks, advisor to the Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew Garden, wrote in his journal in 1771: "Some plants common to China, such as bamboo, are more believable on the wallpaper than in the works of the best botanists I've ever seen." Other representatives of the Chinese flora, often appearing on wallpaper and largely thanks to this have won the love of European gardeners - tree-like peonies, camellias and hydrangeas. Among all this blossoming splendor, parrots fluttered, cranes flocked to the watering hole, pheasants and peacocks paced importantly. In 1806, the beloved of the English prince, Lady Hertford, decided that the Chinese wallpaper chosen for her living room in Temple-Newsam was not enough for birds, and she turned to the first popular at that time, J. Audubon's "Birds of America", from which she carved 25 of the most beautiful birds. She pasted them very successfully - the deception was discovered only in 1968. So the Chinese birds got neighbors, with whom they never met in real life. But who but the zoologists could be interested in the actual reliability? The main thing was to create a beautiful exotic garden on the walls, similar to the biblical Eden. Unscientific fantasy What did the European masters have to do? Take a course on China and start copying the eastern samples. In the most disadvantageous position was France, which, as luck would have it, had no direct trade contacts with China. What happened was fine, but nothing to do with real China. On canvases, pastoral sketches appeared, where instead of gallant cowherd boys and cowherd boys in elegant courteous poses, Chinese women with flat umbrellas and Chinese in triangular hats froze. The concubines and tangerines looked a lot like the court dressed for the masquerade ball. Sometimes the Chinese played the role of mummer monkeys - this was politically incorrect humor in the Rococo era. But the compatriots were satisfied - there was no need to wait for the return of distant expeditions. And what kind of person is he, China, who knows? 
- Photo 1. Green salon in the Chinese pavilion "Kina" at the court of the Swedish king, Drottningholm, the XVIII century.
- Photo 2. Wallpapers Cranes from the collection of Chinoiserie, hand-painted on silk, de Gourny.
- Photo 3. Handmade wallpapers from the collection of Exotic Chinoiserie, Iksel.
- Photo 4. A shot from the film "Gosford Park" (2001). The walls in the bedroom of the heroine Maggie Smith are covered with wallpaper de Gournay. They help to recreate the atmosphere of the luxurious English manor of the 1930s.
- Photo 5. Wallpapers Oriental Landscape from the collection of Chinoiserie, hand-painted on silk, de Gournаy.
- Photo 6. Askek from the Chinoiserie collection, hand-painted on aged paper India Tea Paper, de Gournay.
- Photo 7. Decorative panels, hand printing gouache on watercolor paper, from the collection Treillage Chinoiserie, Iksel.
Many plots of the Chinoiserie collection were originallyDesigned by De Gourney designers for the restoration of historical interiors. To give the wallpaper an authentic look, De Gourney uses silk and the special base of India Tra Paper. Each of its canvases is glued by hand from a set of squares of aged, like faded paper. Among the company's clients at various times were: the Oppenheimer family, Joan K. Rowling, Liv Tyler, Keith Moss, Jude Law, the ruler of Qatar and the prince of Saudi Arabia. The company's wallpaper in the Middle Kingdom was hand-painted on silks or paper with brushes and paints. There was also a cheaper, but no less spectacular option - paper wallpaper, on which the drawing was applied by the method of hand printing. Separate sheets or sheets (in the set of them there were 25-40) combined buttwork, creating in the room a panorama of a luxurious garden. The plot panels were framed - and if desired, they could easily be changed. In the course were also satin and embroidered fabrics from India. In the second half of the 18th century, the walls of Chinese rooms were dressed in cotton and linen. It happened after the technology of printing that came from the East from wooden boards was perfected by enterprising Frenchmen. They began to make prints from copper engraved forms - this fabric was called Toile de Jouy (canvas from Jouy) and was recognizable for its one-color drawing - of course, in Chinese style. However, printed fabrics were also scarce and not cheap. The situation could save only mass production of printed wallpapers, gaining momentum in the first half of the XIX century. It could - if the Chinese myth was not destined to break. The tale is the end In the 30s of the XIX century the East India monopoly came to an end, the curtain rose - and the romantic veil over China was scattered. It became clear that the far eastern empire is a country like the others, not the magical land, as it was seen from a distance. However, until now, the Chinese exotica does not leave the house of romantic Europeans. Motives, as a rule, borrow from the most famous historical designs, which even now you can admire in palaces and museums. Sometimes fragments of fine wallpaper decorations are found in archives or bought at auctions, and then they create on their basis modern versions of old masterpieces in traditional Chinese techniques of painting and hand printing. So, the English brand de Gournay is famous for its historical collection, which presents copies of the wallpaper from the family castle of Walter Scott, the residence of the British royal family in Hampton Court and the Marble Hill mansion belonging to beloved George II Henrietta Howard. All the wallpaper is painted by hand exactly the same as three centuries ago.
