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Object Timeline
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1908 |
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1938 |
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1970 |
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2001 |
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2012 |
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2025 |
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Frieze (USA)
This is a Frieze. It was manufactured by Hobbs, Benton & Heath. It is dated ca. 1908 and we acquired it in 1938. Its medium is machine-printed paper. It is a part of the Wallcoverings department.
I have always been fond of landscape friezes and I sometimes wish I lived in a nice bungalow where I could actually use some of these different wall treatments to best effect. I’ve probably mentioned before that wide landscape friezes were popularized by Walter Crane when he introduced his May Tree frieze in 1896, and were extremely popular from about 1905-15.
Landscape friezes were commonly used in dining rooms, hallways, maybe libraries, and would hang above a high wainscot or patterned wallpaper running from the baseboard up to six feet or so. Another less-patterned paper would then cover the wall between the top of the frieze and the ceiling. Another option, if the ceiling is papered, is to carry the ceiling design down to the top of the frieze. If used in a dining room a plate rail could be installed to cover the seam between the wallpaper and frieze.
This frieze is especially striking, with its metallic gold sky and deep red ground that shades from dark to light, like there is some ominous cloud hanging over the foreground of this landscape. It creates a rather surreal effect, and the fact that this landscape is mostly barren, kind of feeds into this feeling. There are a few mounds of scrub grass in the front, interspersed with some all-but leafless trees. While the trees in the background do seem to contain foliage, they are rendered as green silhouettes and seem to be somewhat removed from the landscape, maybe filling in for the lack of clouds.
One of the reasons for using multiple patterns on the wall, aside from alleviating the boredom of having a single paper cover all four walls from baseboard to ceiling, was to visually lower the ceiling. But living in a pre-war apartment with eight and a half foot ceilings I can’t imagine why that would be a problem.
This object was
donated by
Paul F. Franco.
It is credited Gift of Paul F. Franco.
- Sidewall (possibly France)
- machine-printed on paper.
- Gift of Charles Grimmer & Son.
- 1930-14-1-e
- Drawing, Sunset over a Mountainous Landscape
- oil and graphite on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-122
- Drawing, Mount Katahdin, Maine
- oil and graphite on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-323-c
Our curators have highlighted 3 objects that are related to this one.
- Book, Die Harmonie der Farben (The Harmony of Colors)
- stencil, brush and gouache on paper.
- Purchase from the Margery Masinter Endowment, Smithsonian Libraries, QC495....
- 92.2016.23
- Poster, Aeron Chair
- digital print and screenprint on paper.
- Gift of Herman Miller.
- 2014-19-1
- Drawing, Sunset over Hilltops, Jamaica, West Indies
- brush and oil paint, graphite on thin cream paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-418-a
Its dimensions are
H x W: 121 x 51 cm (47 5/8 x 20 1/16 in.)
It is inscribed
Printed in bottom margin: HBH and 3641.
Cite this object as
Frieze (USA); Manufactured by Hobbs, Benton & Heath; machine-printed paper; H x W: 121 x 51 cm (47 5/8 x 20 1/16 in.); Gift of Paul F. Franco; 1938-50-16
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibitions Saturated: The Allure and Science of Color and Rooms with a View: Landscape & Wallpaper.
