Back
Curator Ingela Broström, Gävleborg County Administrative Board,
Chair of the Swedish Association for the Preservation of Buildings
Hälsingland people were early in their use of printed wallpaper. Wallpaper
was put up here and there in the farms as early as the end of the 18th
century. The oldest wallpaper often has the strongest, clearest colours;
orange was a particular fashion around the year 1800. Sometimes they are
exact imitations of the silk wallpaper of the great castles. The wallpaper
was hung in the most important rooms, in bedchambers and festival rooms.
If lovely flower painting is found in the kitchen, then one can be almost
sure that there is wallpaper in the overnight cottage.
The
wallpapers hung in the Hälsingland farms of the mid-19th century are often
of the best quality, printed by hand in many shades on fine paper. Many
were imported from France. The patterns are the same as in castles and
manor houses, with the difference that the Hälsingland farmers' wallpaper
is often better preserved. Wallpaper of which only fragments remain in
other places sits here untouched on the walls. That makes the Hälsingland
wallpaper treasure unique in Sweden.
Read more:
Decorative techniques