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Lot Essay
The fashion for 'Peking Paper' was probably encouraged at Woburn in the 1760s by Sir William Chambers (d. 1796), architect and author of Designs of Chinese Buildings, Furniture, Dresses etc., 1757. The craze for the Anglo-Chinois garden also encouraged its growth inside much of the interiors of houses, and by 1800 the fashion was led at Carlton House, London and the Marine Pavilion, Brighton by the Prince Regent.
Vast quantities of wall-paper, sometimes amounting to some two thousand pieces, are recorded as being imported on a single East India Company ships in the second half of the eighteenth century; and it was from the 1803 cargo of the Royal George that John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (d.1839) acquired some of his papers, in the year following his inheritance of the Woburn estate. These panels, were originally intended for one of several Chinese rooms at Woburn, this one in the East wing.
Vast quantities of wall-paper, sometimes amounting to some two thousand pieces, are recorded as being imported on a single East India Company ships in the second half of the eighteenth century; and it was from the 1803 cargo of the Royal George that John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (d.1839) acquired some of his papers, in the year following his inheritance of the Woburn estate. These panels, were originally intended for one of several Chinese rooms at Woburn, this one in the East wing.