Parlor at the Winterthur museum - Delaware

Magazine Antiques, March, 2002 by Diana P. Rowan

In June 1928, a little more than a year after inheriting Winterthur; his family's estate in Delaware, (1) Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) made a very important purchase: he acquired twenty-two rolls of Chinese painted wallpaper from the interior designer Nancy McClelland (1876-1959) through the decorative arts consultant J. A. Lloyd Hyde (1902-1981). (2) The paper had been sold to McClelland by "Monsieur and Madame Charles Huard, 3 bias avenue de Paris, Versailles, France," (3) but its original source was unknown. The exceptional height and large number of rolls in the set required a sizeable installation space, so to accommodate it du Pont combined two rooms to create the Chinese Parlor (Pl. I). The situation of this grand room, between the original 1839 house and the twentieth-century additions makes it a crucial link in du Pont's ambitious transformation of his estate into a museum. (4)

In 1989 the wallpaper of the Chinese parlor was extensively studied and restored by the Paper Conservation Laboratories at Winterthur. (5) At that time conservators recorded that the panels each measure 12 feet, 3 1/2 inches from the top of the baseboard to the ceiling trim. Twenty-one of the panels are between 46 and 47 inches wide, and one is 24 inches wide. (6) Each panel is comprised of seven sheets, and these joined sheets make up the great panorama of nonrepeating scenes that surround the four walls of the Chinese Parlor.

In the grand scheme of Winterthur, the Chinese wallpaper servers not only as a physical link between segments of the collection, but also between du Pont and other collectors. Especially important was his connection to Henry Davis Sleeper (1878-1934), a Boston-based architect and designer, whose house, Beauport, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was "a real inspiration" (7) to du Pont. The China Trade Room at Beauport is hung with an extensive set of Chinese wallpaper (see Pl. XIV) that the financier and statesman Robert Morris (1734-1806) is believed to have ordered and which was brought to this country in May 1785 on the return voyage of the Empress of China, the first American vessel to sail to China. Prior to their installation at Beauport, the rolls of wallpaper had never been hung and were discovered in their original packing crate in the attic of the Elbridge Gerry. House in Marblehead, Massachusetts. (8) Because of the papers excellent state of preservation, even today the painted scenes, depicting rice c ultivation and porcelain manufacture, retain their original fresh colors. The Beauport paper provides useful comparative documentation for a study of the paper at Winterthur.

The wallpaper at Winterthur shares landscape and architectural element as well as figures with the Beauport paper and other painted wallpapers imported from China in the eighteenth century. (9) What distinguishes the Winterthur paper from the others is the fact that it is not composed of sequential scenes that describe the cultivation of rice or tea or the manufacture of porcelain or silk, which were so typical of Chinese export art. (10) Instead, individual elements are the focus of interest, particularly individual buildings that are identified by inscriptions. These inscriptions are not restricted to shop signs -- as they are on the Beauport paper -- but identify half a dozen different structures and help to explain the figures associated with them. By translating the six inscriptions one is able to literally read the wallpaper, and the insights that result from such close study inform the viewer on subjects of Confucian and Taoist ideals, literati and mercantile settings, poetry, and garden architecture. Thus the whole can be characterized as a statement of philosophical, religious, and artistic concepts, a compendium of thought prevalent in Qing dynasty China (1644-1912).

The order followed in this article is dictated by the paper itself, based on the numbers inscribed in the lower margin of all but three of the panels. Winterthur's own study of the wallpaper revealed that there is no panel numbered one; that the unnumbered panels are placed where numbers eight, thirteen, and sixteen should be; and that the characters on panels two, seven, fifteen, and seventeen are best seen under infrared light. (11) The twenty-one full panels are followed by the half panel and then by the section cut out for the fireplace opening on the north wall.

The six vignettes with identified buildings are interspersed among subjects that are common to most Chinese export painting, including groups of foreigners and the daily occupations and pastimes of villagers. The first scene in the series we will consider, at the south end of the west wall, represents a man in official dress, shown in an open doorway above which hangs a signboard (Pl. II). The three characters on the sign read (from right to left) taishi di, identifying the building as a "second-class compilers residence." (12) The title second-class compiler indicates an official who had been accorded a high-ranking post in the Hanlin Academy (Hanlin Yuan), a government institution that was established in Beijing during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and continued until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Its purpose was to teach the Confucian classics to those preparing for the state examinations, and scholars who succeeded in the exams were usually given a position in the academy. (13) A second-class compiler (14) was literally responsible for gathering data for the historical chronicles that the Chinese traditionally prepared and highly prized, but in practice he could be assigned any of a number of duties.