Arthur et Robert
Almost at the same time, an English watchmaker named Arthur, in partnership with one of his compatriots, set up a business in Paris, in the rue de l'Arbalète in which he had designs executed on paper, no longer with simple stencils but with carved woodblocks, as was the practice in England.
[1] John (known in France as "Jean") Arthur was born in Oswestry, England, on March 25, 1716 ; he married in Paris on September 18, 1756 (with Suzanne Charlotte Dejean (ca 1736-1805), became Master Watchmaker in 1757.
[5] At the very top, one can see the terrace and the hot greenhouse, and below, one can follow all the stages in the manufacture of wallpaper, including the "mill and colour factory".
In the Memorandum book for 1786, he noted "for Arthur for Paper hangings for hotel" - presumably the Hôtel de Langeac he then rented for his own residence.
[8] Grand-Carteret noticed a curious advertisement by the Arthur et Grenard manufacture which "Makes and sells women's belts, which are printed on satin ribbon, in the style of Etruscan paintings, arabesques and antique cameos.
Grand-Carteret adds that around 1788 the place took the name of "Manufacture de papiers peints pour Tentures et Décorations".
[11] Jacqué also mentions a letter from Nicolas Dollfus's new manufacture in Mulhouse to the great painter Joseph-Laurent Malaine requiring him to provide designs for such decorative paper strips featuring flowers, previously exclusive to Paris (specifically crafted by Réveillon and by Arthur et Grenard).
In the first appendix of his PhD thesis, Jacqué gives a complete list of the wallpapers supplied "pour l'Appartement du Roy" aux Tuileries to redecorate the Cabinet de travail du Roy and adjoining library, the antechamber, the King's bedchamber and alcove, the Queen's dining room, etc.
They took possession of their new and vast property located only about 1 kilometre North of their current premises, on June 26, 1789 with no doubt some very ambitious plans in mind, but this rather ill-timed investment came to nothing.
In May 1791, the Arthur and Robert Company suffered a serious loss as a result of the circulation of false bills of exchange issued by counterfeiters, including one they employed as printer.
He is remembered for renting part of the château de Bercy in the hope of setting up a wallpaper factory or transferring the other one:,[17] and he received Robespierre, who came there to rest, if we are to believe Mme Campan speaking here to her former pupil Queen Hortense: "This beautiful place was saved during the Terror, by whom?
His friend Arthur, a section leader, had rented it out and Robespierre used to come here to rest after signing the death warrant for so many Frenchmen.
There, he went fishing peacefully, and according to the report of the gardeners, he felt sorry for himself when a carp caught on his line struggled on the lawn, and this at the very hour when fifty or sixty heads were separated from their bodies by his order".
Arthur was also charged with the inspection of the Temple tower where the royal family had been relegated: he denounced François Adrien Toulan [fr] and Jacques François Lepitre [fr], "who hold conversations in low voices with the prisoners of the Temple and stoop to excite Marie-Antoinette's gaiety".
For Robert, the former business partner of a man who "was said to have eaten the blood-dripping heart of a Swiss guard killed in the defence of the Tuileries",[18] getting the company back on its feet after the revolutionary turmoil cannot have been an easy task.
At the end of his book, Clouzot recalls a stanza written in honour of the Parisian wallpaper manufacturers who exhibited their products under porticoes at the 1800 Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française: Les papiers que chacun aime / Sont d'Annonay ou d'Angoulême: / Robert, Jacquemart, Simon, / Ont toujours un grand renom.
[n 6] When Mrs Cradock visited the premises, she insisted on the fact that the wallpapers perfectly imitated flowers (obviously, considering that one of the painters working for Arthur et Grenard was Joseph-Laurent Malaine[23]), lanterns, etc., so much so that "you have to touch them to convince yourself of the reality".
[24] Grand Carteret notes in particular "a complete decoration in grisaille, with overdoors, printed panels, architectural ornaments" representing mythological scenes ("Apollo and Daphne after Van Loo, Pygmalion and his statue, Orpheus charming the beasts, the Sacrifice of Iphigénie after Delafosse, the Offering to Pan, Pyramus and Thisbe").
The first one, Rue Louis-le-Grand en 1839, actuel 2ème arrondissement,[25] shows the façades of Arthur et Robert's (on the right) and of the "Pavillon de Hanovre" (on the left).
