The 19th-Century Lady Who Used Audubon’s Birds for Wallpaper

In 1827, when Lady Isabella Hertford finally installed the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper the Prince of Wales had gifted her two decades earlier, she thought it didn’t have enough pizzazz for her drawing room at Temple Newsam in Leeds, England. So she took on a collage project, using birds cut from what’s now one of the world’s priciest books: John James Audubon’s The Birds of America. (A copy of the book sold for $12.6 million in 2010).

Chinese Drawing Room at Temple Newsam House, with birds cut from
John James Audubon’s ‘Birds of America’ and birds painted on the original wallpaper
(courtesy Leeds City Council)

This video shows the Chinese Drawing Room in more of its lavish detail.



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