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See more objects with the tag interior, domestic, home, wallcovering, floral, dragons, geometric, leather, Japanese influence, imitation, embossed.

Object Timeline

1953	We acquired this object.
2012	We photographed this object.
2013	We photographed this object. We photographed this object. We exhibited this object.
2015	We photographed this object. We photographed this object.
2024	You found it!

Sidewall (Japan)

This is a sidewall. It is dated ca. 1885 and we acquired it in 1953. Its medium is fiber composition, tung oil, embossed. It is a part of the Wallcoverings department.

This sample of imitation leather was found among several hundred other samples in a box addressed to Mr. Warren Delano, grandfather of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and labeled "Japanese Wallpaper in Squares." The design is in the Anglo-Japanesque style as seen in the asymmetry of the pattern. The wallcoverings has a peculiar chemical odor, like petroleum. An article found in "The Decorator and Furnisher" in 1885 addressed this issue by stating that the oily smell has been eliminated. Imitation leather wallcoverings became fashionable in the 1870s and gained renewed fervor with the Colonial Revival movement in teh early twentieth century.

It is credited Gift of Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

A portion of a silvered, painted leather wallcovering whose surface is somewhat worn and discolored. Reveals an ornate framework with scalloped corners adorned with white bell flowers. Inside the frame is a a scrolled triangular shaped section, whose bottom line is split into two curling legs, with trelliswork, and a large ornamental flower at its top point. Around the edges are white stylized flowers, bunches of grapes and dark green scrolling foliage. Two birds carrying sprigs of foliage face away from each other towards their respective edges at the top of the slopes of the triangle. In between the legs of the central shape is a bunch of golden daisy-like flowers.

Leather, ca. 1700
leather, stamped, embossed, silvered, varnished.
Museum purchase through gift of Thomas Snell.
1903-21-3

A portion of a silvered, painted leather wallcovering whose surfaces is somewhat worn and discolored. Reveals a prominent framework with scalloped corners ornamented with white bell flowers. Inside the frame is a a scrolled triangular shaped section, whose bottom line is split into two curling legs, with trelliswork, and a large ornamental flower at its top point, around the edges are white carnation-like flowers and dark green scrolling foliage. Two birds face away from each other towards their respective edges at the top of the slopes of the triangle. In between the two legs of the central shape is a bunch of daisy-like flowers.

Leather, ca. 1700
leather, stamped, silvered, painted.
Museum purchase through gift of Thomas Snell.
1903-21-1

Its dimensions are

45.5 x 33 cm (17 15/16 x 13 in.)

Cite this object as

Sidewall (Japan); fiber composition, tung oil, embossed; 45.5 x 33 cm (17 15/16 x 13 in.); Gift of Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; 1953-156-11-a/c

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition New York and the Gilded Age.

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2Chcn/
Accession Number 1953-156-11-a/c
Object ID 18395011