Decorative Panel, Africa from "The Continents" series

A Symbol of Africa

This paper from the 19th-century French wallpaper manufacturer Delicourt would have been part of a set of panels that depicted the “Four Continents.” The accompanying panels would have shown allegories of Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and the whole set would likely have been arranged on the wall with further printed decoration in a manner similar to this set of the Five Senses illustrated in a Delicourt catalogue owned by the Cooper-Hewitt Library.



Typical of many nineteenth-century versions of the Four Continents theme, Africa is represented as an Ancient Egyptian woman. Dressed in clothing and a headdress that references Pharaonic costume, she carries in one hand a water jug decorated with an incised stylized lotus while the other hand rests on the capital of an Egyptian column. She also stands on ears of wheat and a stylized plinth, as if she were actually a sculpture placed in a niche. This illusion is emphasized by the monochrome color scheme of sandy browns and creams which match the faux-wood grain of the background. This pseudo-sculptural effect was a specialty of the firm.

The use of Ancient Egypt to stand in for Africa was largely motivated by the Egyptian Campaign undertaken by Napoleon between 1798 and 1801. Images created by artists who accompanied the French military were diffused widely in Europe and fixed Ancient Egypt in the popular imagination. Nevertheless, despite the frequent conflation of Ancient Egypt and Africa in nineteenth-century art and design, the older tradition of depicting the continent as a dark-skinned Sub-Saharan woman, as can be seen in this porcelain figure also in the Cooper-Hewitt’s collection, remained more common. One of the most prominent examples of the Four Continent themes in New York City, the 1903-07 sculptures by Daniel Chester French located in front of the Museum of the American Indian at Bowling Green, combines the older and newer versions of the allegory by depicting a Sub-Saharan woman sleeping on Ancient Egyptian ruins.



Delicourt was founded in 1838 by Étienne Delicourt, a former worker at the popular wallpaper manufacturer Dufour. While never as successful as Dufour or its rival Zuber et Cie., Delicourt maintained a steady business, employing at one point over three hundred workers, and had lauded appearances at the international expositions of the 1850s. Delicourt’s panoramic scenic La Grande Chasse, “The Great Hunt,” won the only “Council Medal” awarded to a wallpaper at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, while the firm’s showing at the 1853 New York World’s Fair won a bronze medal. However, the company would cease to exist in 1860, when it was bought out by another manufacturer Les Frères Hoock. Étienne also found minor success as a color theorist. His 1847 work Album du contraste simultané des couleurs d'après le système de M. Chevreul was so successful in its use of wallpaper samples to illustrate Michel Chevreul’s concept of the simultaneous contrast of color that he was mentioned by the latter author in his own work. Delicourt’s complex understanding of color shines through in this panel’s muted yet warm color scheme. Ultimately, the paper is a beautiful example of the production of this little-known but significant manufacturer.

Nicholas Lopes is a student in the History of Design & Curatorial Studies graduate program at the Cooper Hewitt, and is a Master’s Fellow in the Wallcoverings Department.



References:

Catalogue, Issues 141-149. London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., 1894.

Chevreul, Michel Eugène. Complément des études sur la vision des couleurs. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1879.

Exposition universelle de 1851: Travaux de la commission française sur l'industrie des nations. Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1855.

Lynn, Catherine. Wallpaper in America: From the Seventeenth Century to World War I. New York: W.W. Norton, c1980.

Decorative Panel, Africa from "The Continents" series; Manufactured by Delicourt; France; block printed on paper, combed ground; 145 x 58 cm (57 1/16 x 22 13/16 in.); Gift of Deutsches Tapetenmuseum; 1955-51-4

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition The Cooper-Hewitt Collections: A Design Resource.