Wall borders

These wall borders all come from Harewood House and probably date from the 1770s. The need for wall borders arose from the difficulty in neatly finishing the edges of both paper and cloth wall coverings where they met dado rails, architraves and other wood and plasterwork. This could be done quite cheaply, with a coloured paper strip, but for a house like Harewood something considerably more stylish and rich was required. Each room had a different border, designed to complement the wall covering and harmonise with the other furnishings of the room. For instance, the bottom example comes from the White Drawing Room (now the Cinnamon Drawing Room), and is finished in two-colour gold to match the furniture, picture and mirror frames. Even the simplest of these borders was expensive, and some were very expensive indeed. The top border was made for the State Bedroom, and was invoiced in November 1773: ‘420 feet rich Carved Antique Border gilt in Burn[ishe]d Gold @ 5/3 … £110 : 5 : 0'. In everyday terms, four feet (120 cm) of this border cost the equivalent of a week's wages for the journeyman carver who made it.

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