The wallpaper applied to the walls in the Blue Room was painstakingly researched and selected by the curatorial team. Three key considerations guided the team’s choice of reproduction wallpaper: date, country of origin, and color. In order to best represent the Washingtons’ choice for this space, we considered the evidence for each factor. Unfortunately, no fragments of eighteenth-century wallpaper had survived to tell us exactly what the Washingtons placed here in the 1790s.
George Washington’s papers confirmed that there was a major re-papering campaign throughout the Mansion in 1797, when the Washingtons returned from Philadelphia at the conclusion of his term as President. Among the suppliers Washington turned to were two Philadelphia merchants who dealt in highly-fashionable French wallpapers: William Poyntell and Georges Bertault. We also had definite evidence that the Washingtons had used French papers in the Mansion. Surviving fragments of the wallpaper border used in the New Room were a product of the royal French wallpaper manufactory started by Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and later continued by the partnership of Jacquemart et Bénard.
