Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, (Paris, 1725 - Paris, 1811) was a French
wallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. They are usually sold in rolls and are put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
manufacturer. Réveillon's career was an exemplary story of the self-made businessman.
Réveillon apprenticed as a tradesman,
haberdasherA haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons and zippers. In U.S. English, haberdasher is another term for a men's outfitter. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery....
and stationer. In 1753 he began to import and hang flock wallpapers from England. The
papier blue d'Angleterre became very popular when
Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette ; was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I....
, decorated her apartments with them.
Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, (Paris, 1725 - Paris, 1811) was a French
wallpaperWallpaper is a kind of material used to cover and decorate the interior walls of homes, offices, and other buildings; it is one aspect of interior decoration. They are usually sold in rolls and are put onto a wall using wallpaper paste...
manufacturer. Réveillon's career was an exemplary story of the self-made businessman.
Life
Réveillon apprenticed as a tradesman,
haberdasherA haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons and zippers. In U.S. English, haberdasher is another term for a men's outfitter. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery....
and stationer. In 1753 he began to import and hang flock wallpapers from England. The
papier blue d'Angleterre became very popular when
Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette ; was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I....
, decorated her apartments with them. During the Seven Years War Reveillon starting to produce wallpaper himself, marrying well and using the dowry to produce velvet paper, pasted up into rolls and using fast colours, developed by
Jean-Baptiste PillementJean-Baptiste Pillement was a painter and designer, known for his exquisite and delicate landscapes, but whose importance lies primarily in the engravings done after his drawings and their influence in spreading the Rococo style, and particularly the taste for chinoiserie, throughout...
.
In 1759 he moved to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, then a neighbourhood dominated by the various crafts associated with furnishing. Réveillon launched production of a full range of wallpapers. The dukes were exited and in 1765 - already extremely wealthy - he bought a mansion, with a parc and a theatre inside
La Folie Titon, formerly owned by
Évrard Titon du TilletÉvrard Titon du Tillet is best known for his important biographical chronicle, Le Parnasse françois, composed of brief anecdotal vite of famous French poets and musicians of his time, under the reign of Louis XIV and the Régence.- Biography :Of Scottish origin, Évrard Titon du Tillet was the son...
. The production of wallpaper was inside.
In 1775 Réveillon opened a paper mill to improve both the quantity and quality of his paper supply. In 1776 he opened a shop near the Tuileries. Ambassador and kings came to visit and buy from him. Réveillon himself dabbled chemistry enough to discover a new process for making
vellumVellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...
paper in 1782. The following year he was granted permission to use the title of
Manufacture Royale.
His purchase of the paper mill and expertise in paper production brought him into contact with Etienne de Montgolfier, and it was from Réveillon’s garden at
Folie Titon that the first hot-air balloon was launched on 12 September 1783. Réveillon delivered a special and colourfull wallpaper, used cover up the balloon. A second balloon, called
Le Réveillon, with a rooster, a duck and a sheep was launched a week later at
VersaillesVersailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial center...
. On the 15 of October his employee André Giroud de Villette and Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier went into the sky, as pioneers of ballooning, but it was not a free flight.
In the year 1789 Réveillon was the casualty of his own ill-digested reflections on modern economics. 'Since bread was the foundation of our national economy' its distribution should be deregulated, permitting lower prices. That in turn would allow lower wage costs, lower manufacturing prices and brisk consumption. On the 28 of April 1789 his mansion was destroyed, all the wallpaper, glue, furniture and paintings were burned, except 2,000 bottles of wine. Réveillon and his family escaped by climbing a wall and fled to the
BastilleThe Bastille was a fortress-prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine—Number 232, Rue Saint-Antoine—best known today because of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which along with the Tennis Court Oath is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. The event was...
, with the help of his friend
Jacques NeckerJacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland...
. It was a bloody day, some say 25 other believe 900 people died. The rioteers were savagely repressed, in an opening episode of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based...
. Today plaques mark the site of the
Reveillon riotThe Réveillon Riot occurred on 28 April 1789 in the St. Antoine district of Paris where a factory which produced luxury wallpaper was owned by Jean-Baptiste Réveillon. The factory employed around 300 people. The Réveillon Riot was one of the first instances of violence during the French Revolution...
.
Réveillon moved to England and rented out his manufacture to Jacquemart & Bénard, who produced wallpaper till 1840.
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