This paper is printed to look like fabric. Wallpapers that imitated textiles were popular in France and England from about 1800 to 1850. The technique used was called 'trompe-l'oeil', a French term meaning something that tricks the eye. Decorators used printed border papers to give a neat finish to the wall. They also used them to hide the heads of nails or tacks. This was necessary if the wallpapers had been fixed to wooden battens or pasted to a canvas lining rather than pasted directly onto the wall. Today manufacturers produce wallpaper borders as rolls. However, around 1850, borders were printed as a repeat pattern on larger sheets. These sheets then had to be cut up and joined.