IN-SITU CONSERVATION TREATMENT OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH WALLPAPERS
JOSEPH DUFOUR: GALERIE MYTHOLOGIQUE

An in-situ conservation project to preserve the collection of twenty-one wallpaper panels arranged into eleven individual tableaux was completed by ConservArt in January 2003 at the Vizcaya Museum, winter home of International Harvester vice president James Deering.

Vizcaya was built between 1914 and 1916 in Miami, Florida and was designed in the style of the Italian Renaissance villas that Deering had visited in Europe. Its art and furnishings portray 400 years of European history. The house and gardens are the creation of three architects: F. Burrall Hoffman, who designed the buildings; Diego Suarez planner of the gardens, and Paul Chalfin, who was the general artistic supervisor for every phase of the project. Together they created an estate that looked as if it had been lived in by succeeding generations of the same family with each generation adding their own period furnishings of the time.

This collection of wallpapers installed in the Entrance Hall of the Vizcaya was created in the atelier of Joseph Dufour around 1814. The early history of these particular works is unknown, what is known specifically is that the panels were purchased as hundred-year-old antiques by Paul Chalfin for incorporation into the future Vizcaya.

The conservation treatment consisted of cleaning, consolidation of pigments and paper supports, and inpainting of the deteriorated wallpaper. The work was executed in close collaboration with Mrs. Michelle McDonald, Chief Curator. As a result of the conservation treatment, the wallpaper remains in place today for the edification of present and future generations, providing a vivid link to the history of the house and its owner, as well as an example of nineteenth-century decor and taste.