This beautifully illustrated 1907 German book¹ seems to me to be a sales catalog for a company selling flat-masks, or templates, through which desirable and somewhat complicated (or at least complex) nay be produced.  A customer could leaf through this book of 60 designs which are arranged according to room type, and perhaps, if the fancy struck, could purchase the sheets and instructions necessary for the job to be done.  For example, plate #44 (Reggie Jackson’s number in the great summer of 1977), the “Pause mit Hilfsschablone” (its identifier in the “Preisliste” and offered at 10 Marks) is meant to decorate a wall for a stairway. 

The great bulk of the designs are those for ceilings, and ceiling corners, as well as for wall designs and the small bits that run slightly above the floor and the wall (I’m sorry, but I don’t know the technical term for this).

In any event it is a very surprising work to find–for me, at least–to see someone selling the possibilities of such advanced design motifs in a simple, order-it-from-our-catalog format.

Notes:

1.  Paul Steuer.  Malereien fuer Flachenschablone und Pinseldruckmanier in modernem und Biedermeier-Stil, published by the Otto Baumgaertel publishers, Berlin, in 1907.  Only two copies of this work are found in WorldCat, at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and another in the Wissenschcaftliche Staatsbibliothek in Mainz.