A Visual Feast

WITH ENCHANTMENT AND WHIMSY, DE GOURNAY CARRIES ON THE HISTORIC TRADITION OF DECORATIVE PAINTING

- MALLIKA DALAL

Stand in front of de Gournay’s wallpapers and it feels like a scene of Mary Poppins, where the characters jump right into Bert’s chalk drawings and bring his whimsical sketches to life. It’s almost as if you had leapt into a veritable garden of earthly delights, blooming with gorgeously painted flowers and exotic, tropical birds.

Back in 1984, it was these botanical chinoiserie scenes that initially took Claud Cecil de Gournay to a small agricultural town just beyond Shanghai, where local artists were painting the patterns using traditional techniques. Following a personal restoration project, the inspired Claud worked with the artists to create hand-painted samples of the 18th-century Chinese wallpapers installed in historic European houses. Over the next three decades, his small-scale operation evolved into a tight-knit, family-run business that has captivated the interiors world with its imaginative wall panels influenced by far-flung corners of the globe.