I thought it was about time to write about something other than a regular wallpaper. Wallpapers seem to get all the glory but there are other papers that pull their weight as well, like dado papers. Dado papers were used below the chair rail in rooms that lacked wood wainscots and were popular from the...

This is another odd little wallpaper that intrigued me for a long time. It is just a small fragment showing a wood molding and inset panel with gilt bronze mounts. My first thought is that it was a dado panel and would run horizontally along the bottom of the wall, between the chair rail and...

In the foreground of this elegant French dado two armless caryatid figures, looking as though they escaped from the Erechtheion, are realistically rendered as carved gray stone. The industrious ladies are placed between green capitals, and appear to hold up the weight of the wall above them. The repeated duos are placed in front of...

This classically inspired wallpaper panel was block printed on handmade paper c.1785-90 in France. Jupiter, king of the Gods of Rome, is rendered in tones of ochre and brown against an aqua background. He sits atop a garlanded pedestal with fists full of thunderbolts, his right arm raised and ready to dispense lightening in the...