When the first hand painted papers and blue and white porcelain began arriving in Europe on the trade ships of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they caused something close to a mania. Aristocrats grew giddy for all things Chinese and Japanese, and the exquisite hand painted Chinese wallpapers, panoramas of birds, blossom and bamboo unfurling across the walls of the grandest houses, became the last word in luxury.
What these designs share is a rare quality of serene, uncluttered beauty, an artistry that gives the eye room to breathe. Here is where Asian-influence wallpaper came from, and the designs on the site that carry it best.
"The hand-painted papers of the East became the last word in luxury, and have never lost their allure."
A Three-Hundred-Year Love Affair
Chinoiserie is where that mania settled, and the pagoda is its signature. Ming Pagoda in Navy, from Forbidden City by Coordonné, sends pagodas, pines and cranes across a deep blue in the manner of a toile, and above white tiling in a cloakroom it is exactly the kind of small, confident gesture the style does best. Helanie in Green, from Happy by A Street Prints, is the fuller chinoiserie: pagodas, medallions and flowering branches drawn as a proper toile, and papered through a dining room it does something rather grand.
Ming Pagoda, Navy by Coordonné
Helanie, Green by A Street Prints
Serenity and Drama in One
The lasting appeal of the look is its remarkable range of mood. It can be all serenity, and Shizu in Seafoam, from Hanashi by Ohpopsi, is named for it: shizu means stillness, and the design reduces a willow to a few delicate lines and dotted marks. Or the style can be pure drama: Jasmin, from Square Jasmin by Casamance, sets gold cranes rising through blossom on deep teal, and beside a freestanding bath it is quietly spectacular.
The quietest designs sit between the two. Avielle in Chalk Blue, from AW26 by Laura Ashley, stands herons and cranes among stylised flowers and paints them so gently that the wall reads almost as weather; it is a mural, made to a size, so measure the wall first and we will help you work it out. Himitsu, from the Imperial collection by Graham & Brown, means secret, and it is a sketched mountain landscape of pagodas and pines half dissolving into pale blue. Set into painted panelling, as it is here, it looks less like wallpaper than a folding screen.
Shizu, Seafoam by Ohpopsi
Jasmin by Casamance
Avielle, Chalk Blue by Laura Ashley
Himitsu, Imperial by Graham & Brown
"It is escapism of the most elegant kind: a little of the far away, brought gracefully home."
How and Where to Use It
These designs love to be given space to breathe. A serene blossom or landscape design makes a calm, beautiful backdrop in a bedroom or a dining room, and a single hand painted style panel can turn one wall into a work of art. A bolder chinoiserie brings drama and colour to a hallway or a cloakroom: Pagoda, from Chelsea by Sketch Twenty 3, links its pagodas by walkways with figures moving between them, so the wall becomes a place rather than a pattern.
The quietest route in is the opposite, a single wall treated as a painting. Sakura in Midori, a mural from Traces by Masureel, is cherry blossom and green in the two words of its name, gold and olive branches drifting over soft hills. The collection is drawn from Japanese craftsmanship and what its makers call the beauty of quiet imperfection, which is as good a description of the whole style as anyone has managed.
Pagoda, Chelsea by Sketch Twenty 3
Sakura, Midori by Masureel
The style pairs beautifully with lacquer, with blue and white porcelain, and with simple, elegant furniture that lets the wallpaper lead. Look to Sanderson, Designers Guild and Clarke & Clarke for Asian-influence designs from the serene to the theatrical, and order a sample first to see the colours truly in your own light.
Three centuries on, the romance has not faded. A crane, a pagoda or a single flowering branch still brings a room a little of the far away.
Ready to Bring the Far Away Home?
Browse the full Asian Influence collection, or narrow it down in Botanical and Feathers.
