1960s Korean Vintage Wallpaper — Sunhwa (original / Persian Orange / Wine Berry)

Sunhwa was discovered in the 1945 hanok in Heungwang-ri, Hwado-myeon, Ganghwa Island, now known as Manisanbang, and dates to the early 1960s. It is a ceiling paper built in three layers: a dense green stippled ground, an octagon-and-square tile grid above it, and a floral-and-leaf motif at the centre of each unit. The large octagons carry eight-petal rosettes; the small squares carry neo-Gothic quatrefoil leaf forms. A double border — deep brown outer band, lighter beige inner band — rings each unit, creating a subtle step that reads as physical depth against the flat paper. The green stippled background is not merely decorative. The fine dot-matrix produces a mid-tone richer than any solid ink, evokes the woven surface of damask or tapestry, and — practically — conceals small printing irregularities and the fading that comes with age. The octagon-square geometry belongs simultaneously to several traditions: the encaustic floor tile of late 19th-century Europe; the coffered ceiling of Renaissance palaces, which passed into middle-class homes via plaster moulding and then wallpaper; and the gyeokcheonjang (格天井) lattice ceiling of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese traditional architecture, where octagonal and square frames divided the ceiling of temples, palaces, and upper-class residences. Anglo-Japonism carried related geometric patterns into Victorian ceiling wallpaper fashion — the same decade in which tile pattern began its migration from floor to wall to ceiling as the standard format for affordable luxury. Sunhwa sits at the point where all of these routes converge. GOSATE’s reproduction digitally restores the original pattern, printed on premium non-woven base paper manufactured in Sweden. Available in three colorways: Original, Persian Orange, and Wine Berry.   Roll size : 50cm by 10M Material : Non-woven paper Made in Sweden, Design in Korea