Chinese pictorial wallpaper was developed during the second quarter of the eighteenth century, in response to the European taste for using Chinese paintings and prints as wall decoration. This type of Chinese wallpaper, specifically produced for the west, remained in production until the mid-nineteenth century. By that time old Chinese wallpapers began to be resold and reused in substantial numbers as part of the antiques trade, eventually also making their way to the United States via this secondary market. During the twentieth century several British and American firms once again began commissioning Chinese wallpapers. The development of the taste for Chinese wallpaper in England between the early eighteenth century and the present day demonstrates how an exotic luxury product became an entirely accepted, almost expected element of western elite interiors. By focusing on Chinese wallpaper as merchandise in the primary retail and antiques markets, I will show how this culturally and commercially hybrid product was shaped and reshaped by the forces of supply and demand over a period of two and a half centuries.
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Emile de Bruijn (2018) studied this question.