Art: Les Vues d’Italie (Paysages Italien): The Fancy Instagram Filter of the 19th Century

There was a time, long before your overpriced vintage wallpaper obsession, when people didn’t just stare at screens and scroll endlessly for aesthetic inspiration. No, they lived inside their art. They turned their walls into scenic masterpieces, creating entire worlds where aristocrats took long, leisurely strolls and no one had a day job. Enter Les Vues d’Italie, the 19th-century version of a luxury vacation—except instead of a plane ticket, you just glued Italy to your wall.

Manufactured by the French dream-team Desfossé & Karth sometime between 1865 and 1890 (because precision is for accountants), this woodblock-printed masterpiece transported wealthy Parisians to a fantasyland where bridges were sturdy, rivers were scenic, and no one had ever heard of inflation. The technique? Irisé. Sounds fancy, right? That’s because it is. It’s an artisanal shading method that makes the colors shift subtly, kind of like when you tell a lie and your face goes slightly pink.

Now, let’s talk about what’s actually happening here. The scene? A pristine Italian countryside. The kind of place where everyone has great posture and appears to be on the verge of reciting poetry. The trees? Majestic, perfectly placed, and probably never dropping leaves where they shouldn’t. The people? They’re lounging in the grass, looking like they have nothing better to do than flirt and appreciate la dolce vita. And then, right in the middle, a grand bridge—because what’s an old-timey wallpaper without a bridge that looks like it was built to last longer than your New Year’s resolutions?

The whole thing was printed on wove paper—a machine-made paper with enough rag fibers to make modern hipsters weep with joy. Back in 1994, some scientists (or, let’s be real, very dedicated wallpaper nerds) did a fiber analysis and found that it’s 90% linen and cotton, and 10% mechanically pulped hardwood. In other words, this stuff was built to survive.

So why does this matter? Because this wallpaper is the original statement wall. It’s proof that long before Instagram influencers and Pinterest mood boards, people were already curating their aesthetic—only instead of “minimalist chic,” they went for “grand European fantasy.” It was aspirational, over-the-top, and 100% unnecessary—just like the best things in life.

Would you put this up in your living room today? Probably not. But admit it: You kind of wish you could.

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