c. 1855

Garden of Armida Wallpaper

This centerpiece of a three-part panoramic wallpaper depicts the magical garden of the sorceress Armida, described by the Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso in his masterwork, the epic poemJerusalem Delivered, first published in 1581. Artistic, musical, and literary adaptations of Tasso’s poem were widely popular in the nineteenth century. Determined to raise the production of wallpaper to a fine art, Jules Desfossé chose subjects from celebrated literary works and employed recognized artists, such as the flower painter Édouard Muller (1823–1876), to illustrate them. Desfossé presented this wallpaper at the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1855, winning a first-class medal for his firm’s display.