‘To please the eye and to excite the imagination’

'To please the eye and to excite the imagination’ is how Joseph Dufour, who produced the wallpaper, described ‘the purpose of the enterprise._ [Dufour 1804, p 33]

He definitely managed to achieve that for the early nineteenth century viewer. With its 20 panels and a total length of 10.8 metres, it was the largest panoramic wallpaper of its time; a colorful fantasy filled with depictions of exotic Pacific Indigenous peoples and events, inspired by the voyages of explorers in the previous century.

The painter who designed this wallpaper, Jean-Gabriel Charvet, was known to have worked in both the textile and the wallpaper industry, which is most likely why Dufour commissioned him as a designer. However, that is not the only reason. Charvet had travelled to Guadeloupe in 1773, and during his four year stay there he produced many studies of the exotic landscapes, as well as the native flora and fauna.

This relates to another intention of the wallpaper expressed by Dufour in the promotional prospectus for Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique: overcoming ignorance through popular education and scientific progress. This idea of malleability was typical for the Enlightenment; there was a belief that progress could be achieved by expanding knowledge on the natural world, which allowed for technology to manipulate this natural world in order to enhance the human sciences, which ultimately would produce tolerant societies. Yet this very same malleability that was meant to create inclusive societies, lended itself very well for exclusive narratives.