Wall art of yesteryear

Very early on, civilized man placed great value on adorning the walls of his home. The Greeks and Romans used reliefs sculpted from marble and stone. That followed with marbled veneers and glazed tiles. Different treatments and colors of stucco were later employed to decorate one’s walls. Stamped leather from Spain became the rage, and painted cloths and tapestries were quite the fashion in wall hangings.

What followed was the development of wallpaper, which was a natural step in the evolution of interior decorating. The same wood printing blocks used for textiles could now be used in creating wallpaper. The application of wallpapers has been enjoyed all those years since, and to today.

The specific origins of wallpaper are somewhat sketchy, but its evolution and usage involves many countries. Most likely its introduction to European countries had followed the Dutch trade route from the East, China and Japan. Sometime in the sixteenth century, wallpaper first appeared in Holland. The Dutch traveled to the Far East with their ships filled with goods to trade. They returned laden with goods from China and Japan. The Dutch then exported