ABSTRACT
The century starting with the revival of interest in the Georgian offers particular insights into the reception of eighteenth-century wallpapers. This chapter interrogates how wallpaper made the leap to collected object in both the home and in the museum. It shows how dealers and decorators actively sought out wallpapers that could be removed, restored and resold at a time when country houses in Britain were being demolished or their contents sold off. The chapter looks at how wallpapers to be collected and presents in museums and at heritage sites, movements which involved input from curators, decorators and the new profession of conservator. The history of how eighteenth-century wallpaper has been reused and rehung is inextricably linked to the country house. The country house occupies a much debated role in British material culture. For dealers, Chinese wallpaper provides a new type of interior which could be marketed and sold, as in the eighteenth century, it competed with panelled interiors.
