Decorative Painting.

Harper's new monthly magazine, 41 / 1870

A new method of applying paint in houses has recently been introduced into Paris, by which the disagreeable smell attendant upon freshly painted surfaces may be entirely escaped. This consists in applying the paint in the shop first upon tinfoil, which is spread upon damp glass and treated exactly as if it were a surface to be coated. As many coats are given of such tints as may be desired, and when perfectly dry the foil with its paint is removed from the glass, rolled up upon a roller, and carried to the building where it is to be used. A water-proof mixture is first applied to the wall or surface to be coated, and then the painted foil is put on as if it were wallpaper. The flexibility of the foil permits its application, even to surfaces of an irregular character; and it may be so skillfully done that it is difficult to realize that the paint was not put on coat by coat, as in common painting. Gilding may be effected in the same manner by first applying the gilt leaf to the tin-foil, and then fastening this to the surface desired. The advantage of this method of tin gilding consists in the fact that it does not so easily become tarnished as the ordinary guilding.