ANTOINETTE POISSON
Vincent Farelly and Jean-Baptiste Martin, the two founders and artistic directors of A Paris chez Antoinette Poisson (named in homage to the Marquise de Pompadour, born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, a great admirer of art and wallpaper in the 18th century), are both heritage restorers specializing in wallpaper. In 2012, they decided to revive the art of domino paper.
Printed by hand from blocks engraved with floral or geometric patterns, domino papers were hand-colored. Considered the ancestor of wallpaper, they were used to decorate the walls of small rooms such as corridors or alcoves, to cover books, to adorn the interiors of chests or wardrobes, to line boxes and caskets, and were also used to bind paperback books, constituting today a rare testament to a once large-scale production. These decorative papers reached their peak in the 18th century before gradually disappearing in the following century with the advent of block-printed roll paper.
Antoinette Poisson is reviving this forgotten craft, remaining faithful to the techniques and aesthetics of the era by creating designs inspired by the Age of Enlightenment or reissuing historical motifs. Her collection of domino papers is designed, printed sheet by sheet, and colored in her Parisian workshop. Wallpaper by the meter printed in Brittany, linen or cotton fabric woven and printed in France, handmade wedding boxes and lampshades, and all those notebooks we carry everywhere with us—all these little treasures have found their place in a charming boutique in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
