Musée du papier peint

“Wallpaper museum?!” my friend snorted, when I told her I planned to visit the Musée du papier peint.
Crestfallen, I said, “That bad?”
“Well no, I’ve heard it’s quite good, actually. It’s just that if you tell anyone you want to go to a wallpaper museum they snort derisively.”
Wallpaper has been made in Rixheim, France since 1797, and by Zuber and Cie, from 1802 to 1982. The Musée du papier peint housed in the old Zuber and Cie factory was founded in 1983.
Zuber et Cie, still the crème de la crème of wallpaper makers, is especially known for their scenic wall panels. At one time, the company shipped half of its product to the U.S.A. where many of their hand blocked panels still decorate famous residences across America including, whether Dubya realizes it or not, the Blue Room of the White House.
A labour intensive product, Zuber’s wallpapers require the services of many skilled of craftsmen (colourists, artists, printers, wood carvers)—thus once providing a livelihood for most of Rixheim’s townspeople until the process became industrialized. On display are numerous Rube Goldberg-like contraptions, even one from New Brunswick, New Jersey. One of these machines could produce in a single day, what it previously took four years to make; not however, the panoramic scenes which continue to be manufactured by hand and can require more than fifteen hundred blocks and over two hundred colours.
Apparently, owning a Zuber scene is akin to owning a famous painting. The whole painstaking process starts with the colourist, who hand mixes chalk with mineral, vegetable or chemical pigment. Four men, who are not allowed to talk during the process, apply the background colours with wide brushes. Once the paper has dried, right-handed printers, the blocks aren’t designed to accommodate southpaws, press the paint-laden fruit-wood blocks on precisely designated spots which are later retouched by an artist’s hand.
During the last war, the occupying German forces used many of the original, two-century-old wooden blocks, (since declared by the French government as historical monuments) for firewood. Those blocks that remain are still being used today. The museum’s entrance is located in a secluded courtyard just off the business area of Rixheim.
Musée du papier peint
La Commanderie, 28 rue Zuber
B.P. 41
F-68171 Rixheim
Tel. ++33 389 64 24 56
Fax ++33 389 54 33 06
E-mail: musee.papier.peint@wanadoo.fr
http://www.museepapierpeint.org
Opening hours (call for a guided tour): Daily (except Tuesday) 10-12 a.m. / 2-6 p.m.