The Chinese have the honour of inventing wallpaper; they are said to have pasted rice papers on to walls as far back as the Qin dynasty. Smoother linen fibres later replaced rice, so that painting and printing on paper became easier. By the 12th Century, the skill of paper making had spread to the West via the Silk Route.

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The earliest surviving fragment of European wallpaper, found in Christ's College Cambridge, dates from 1509. It was made by Hugo Goes of York, and has a damask-style design of pomegranates derived from Islamic prototypes, and later much copied in Italian and Spanish textiles. It is a key sample, not only because it shows how textile designs influenced wallpaper, but also because it is a block print.