Chinese silk wallcoverings are one of the earliest global luxury products. Originally, the exclusive domain of Ming Dynasty Chinese nobility, by the 18th Century, the papers  had also been widely adopted by the English and French nobility as the high-water mark of interior design. In France, they were known at the Louis XIV Versailles court as” papiers peints panoramique”. 

 Chinoiserie wallpapers that depicted flowers, birds and butterflies subsequently became the rage of the day with the affluent 18th and 19th Century European Commercial class, and became a standard of elegant living during this period. With the gradual shift of wealth and power to the New World, silk wallpapering followed, and the look became closely associated with the rise of the railroad and manufacturing dynasties of the Vanderbilt, Huntington and Carnegies (many fine examples of silk wallpapering still exist in Newport and other Eastern US historic homes).