For the March/April 2026 issue of the Magazine Antiques, we focused in on a weird side of the decorative furnishings world circa the Industrial Revolution: mass-produced Papier-mâché. These pieces often appear, at a distance, to be solid carved wood but are actually made from a pulp of wood products and adhesives that are pressed into forms and molded by craftspeople to look like very much like painfully expensive furniture and decorative objects at a reduced cost.
Papier-mâché pieces spiked in popularity as the modern middle class formed around the end of the 19th century, but starting as early as the end of the 18th century. It was, then, about a century of development, fine-tuning, and then perfecting to create pieces that could pass as evidence of the owners affluence without sending them to the poor house.
This piece was fun to write because it was one of those stories that we walked into with a certain range of vision, and then were very quickly made to realize that where we thought the limits were is actually only the beginning of what papier-mache was used for. Yes, there were (and still are) trays, bowls, and boxes. But there were also pieces like this one in the MET collection that is, too, made of a wood pulp plus paint, gilt, mother-of-pearl, and mirror.
British papier-mâché etagere in the rococo revival style, c. 1850, with finish imitating Japanese lacquer and mother-of-pearl inlay. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
To read the full piece, go here.
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