Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 - (Page 55)

The front room of the house revealed fragments of five designs. The wallpaper has split where bargeboards join together. Just as with an archaeological dig, the preservation of wallpaper layers makes it possible to see the succession of patterns throughout the house’s history. paper to split along the seams, necessitating frequent replacement. Wallpaper hung in shreds from the boards in Bostick’s house. A floral paper with a border in an Arts and Crafts design appeared to date from the 1910s, a period of wallpaper design not previously represented in the museum’s collection. Museum staff agreed to take a sample of the paper, just enough to show the pattern and border. When Bostick tugged a section of paper from the wall, she revealed a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns beneath it. Although the top layer of paper was relatively intact, only scattered portions of earlier layers remained — the ones that were most difficult to remove. Armed with microspatulas and acidfree folders, curators tried to peel off each layer separately, but the fragile paper stuck tightly to the bare boards as well as other layers. Eventually, several large chunks of paper were removed, with as many as five layers pasted together into one. Just as with an archaeological dig, the preservation of the layers makes it possible to see the succession of patterns throughout the house’s history. The second room of the shotgun house was just as interesting, revealing an Arts and Crafts paper on top and seven layers of older paper dating back to the mid19th century. While removing the wallboard in this room, the contractor had discovered newspaper that was wadded up and used to pad an irregular surface. The scrap, dated March 26, 1916, mentioned Mary Pickford’s latest film on one side and the New Orleans Pelicans baseball team on the other. This date, along with the design of the wallpaper beneath it, indicated that the newest layer of wallpaper was hung before the wallboard was added — probably between 1908 and 1913. Detail of drapery from the figure of Psyche. Back at the museum, curators used steam and a razor-thin spatula to separate the wallpaper layers and discovered that there were five layers in the front room (parlor) and eight in the back. A small sample recovered from underneath the parlor door framing revealed two additional layers that did not appear anywhere else in the room; perhaps they were completely removed from the walls before new layers were hung. The top layers of paper in each room appear to date from the Winter 2007-08/LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES 55

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Katrina: Days of Terror, Months of Anguish Paintings by Rolland Golden The Historic New Orleans Collection The Great Ouachita River Flood of 1932 Jazz Notes Louisiana Architecture Louisiana: Where Land Meets Water Louisiana State Museum Through A Lens Sharply: An Interview with Michael Lewis MR-GO: A “miracle” mired in controversy Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans: An Autopsy Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

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