La Peninsula

Enter the world of de Gournay, where luxury wallpaper and hand-painted chinoiserie transform interiors into 18th-century dreamscapes shaped by timeless craftsmanship and bespoke design.

There are interiors that decorate, and then there are interiors that dream. Enter de Gournay, the elite interior design firm that specializes in just a few categories. Why a few? Hand-painted, hand-embroidered wallcoverings are synonymous with its artful identity. Porcelain vases, dinnerware, and fabrics also paint shades in the de Gournay portrait. De Gournay takes the time to reconstruct the word “bespoke”—thread by thread, stroke by stroke. 

Despite the opulence of the de Gournay name, the family-run company began in the basement of founder Claud Cecil Gurney’s home in 1986. Its name is drawn from the medieval French spelling of the Gurney lineage, a quiet nod to Old World heritage, which still breathes in the de Gournay aesthetic today. The idea was sparked after Gurney’s travels through China, where visits to speciality factories renowned for hand-painting revealed both a mastery of technique and an opportunity to bring this artistry to a wider, discerning audience.

Alongside his daughters, Hannah and Rachel, Gurney maintains the British brand as a family-run house defined by artistry and heritage. De Gournay is celebrated for its hand-painted Chinoiserie and East Asian–inspired wallcoverings, richly embroidered textiles, and porcelain, all crafted in its own Shanghai studio. With Hannah shaping the brand’s public presence and Rachel closely guiding its evolution, the sisters continue to steer de Gournay’s creative vision and global reach, from London to New York and beyond.

Every creation begins with the human hand. Whether a sweeping Chinoiserie garden, a 19th-century French panoramic scene, an Art Deco fantasia, or a gilded silk ceiling, each piece is executed by artists trained in-house and devoted exclusively to the atelier. These are not decorative painters but artisans fluent in centuries-old disciplines, masters of pigment balance, clay composition, glaze chemistry, firing temperatures, paper weights, brush techniques, and the precise language of color. This profound understanding of materials and methods, down to the most minute detail, is the quiet strength that defines de Gournay’s portfolio.

Hand-Embroidered Wallcoverings

Executed entirely by hand, these wallcoverings transform embroidery into an art form for interiors. Each design is meticulously stitched across a range of fabrics, including silk, linen, velvet, and wool sateen. Afterward, the covering is stretched onto walls, transforming the space into wall upholstery. Coverings are even adapted for drapery and bespoke furniture. Embroidery may be rendered in silk and metallic threads, glass beads, sequins, raffia, and other refined materials, creating compositions rich in texture, depth, and quiet drama. Beyond their visual impact, the fabric grounds lend a natural acoustic softness to a room. Crafted by master embroiderers with extraordinary skill and precision, each piece reflects an uncompromising devotion to detail and artisanal excellence. Some collections include Deco Palms, Celestial Atlas, Cosmos, Flora, Etienne, and Amami Waves.

In addition to embroidered wallcoverings, De Gournay offers hand-painted wall scenes. These, too, can be duplicated onto fabrics for window treatments, upholstery, and soft furnishings using an array of textiles like organza, linen, duchess satin, faille, and taffeta.

What emerges from this process is not a product, but art. Each wallpaper, textile, and porcelain piece is singular, imbued with what the house calls “spirit resonance.” It is the intangible presence left behind by the artist, the sense that something deeply human has been embedded in the work. De Gournay often remarks that these pieces will one day appear at auction as antiques. They are made not for trend cycles, but for posterity.

Collections in History

That philosophy unfolds across a remarkable range of collections. The house is best known for its Chinoiserie Collection, hand-painted garden scenes alive with birds, flowers, and meandering landscapes, inspired by original Chinese wallcoverings and the great European interiors of the 17th and 18th centuries. Equally transportive are the panoramic wallpapers, drawing from early 19th-century French block-printed designs to depict sprawling vistas and exotic worlds that transform a room into a journey.

East Asia finds expression in the Japanese and Korean Collection, where bold restraint and reverence for nature echo the visual language of the Edo period and dynastic Korea. The Deco Collection, by contrast, celebrates theatricality, channeling the Ballets Russes and the exuberance of Art Deco through gilding, embroidery, and dramatic painterly techniques.

The Mughal collection captures the lyrical elegance of imperial India, combining hand-painted and hand-embroidered wallcoverings and fabrics into richly layered compositions. More contemporary sensibilities are explored in the Eclectic collection, where stylized botanicals, palm leaves, monkeys, and abstract forms play across larger scales, responding to modern decorative impulses. Complementing these are plain-textured wallcoverings, silks, damasks, and gilded surfaces that provide depth, tactility, and quiet luxury, alongside special projects developed in collaboration with fellow creatives.

Among the most poetic of these collaborations is the Bunny Mellon collection, created in partnership with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Through hand-painted wallpapers and porcelain, the collection pays homage to Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon and her enduring legacy at the Oak Spring Garden Library in Upperville, Virginia, a dialogue between horticulture, scholarship, and decorative art.

This spirit of collaboration continues to animate the brand today. This winter, de Gournay welcomes London-based designer Beata Heuman for a residency at its Upper East Side showroom in New York. For the first time in the city, two rooms are transformed into immersive Beata Heuman interiors, furnished with lighting, furniture, and homewares from her beloved Shoppa collection. At the heart of the installation is the launch of two new wallpaper designs created together. Fruit Garden is a hand-painted pastoral scene inspired by the dining room of Heuman’s Swedish countryside home, with fruit trees in blossom, birds in song, and wildflowers stretching across a meadow, celebrating summer’s abundance. Delft Folly, meanwhile, reimagines classic blue-and-white Delft tiles into a diamond-pane pattern that climbs across the ceiling with playful elegance.

Born in Sweden and based in London, Beata Heuman has been shaping interiors with wit and warmth since founding her studio in 2013. Her work, celebrated for its personal narratives and nostalgic sensibility, has earned her widespread acclaim, with British Vogue praising her for creating homes filled with whimsical detail. Her bestselling book Every Room Should Sing helped cement her philosophy and propelled her Shoppa collection into homes worldwide. Today, she is firmly established among the most influential designers of her generation, named by Architectural Digest as the “It girl of the AD 100” and recognized by Forbes as one of Britain’s most sought-after interior designers.

Delicacy of Porcelain

Based on historic originals, De Gournay also produces a collection of handmade vases and lamps using centuries-old techniques. Each can be converted into a lamp. If you are looking for decorative objects for your space, a collection of figurines and accessories, also hand-made and painted using traditional oriental porcelain making. Searching for the perfect dinnerware? De Gournay offers an array of Blanc de Chine porcelain, handmade and hand-painted. Each design is made using centuries-old techniques as well. 

Alongside the wallpapers, visitors encounter exclusive porcelain pieces crafted by de Gournay in collaboration with Heuman, including a candlestick, a vide-poche, and a whimsical reinterpretation of the house’s iconic Goose tureen. The installation offers a rare opportunity to experience Heuman’s imaginative proportions, saturated colors, and nostalgic charm through the lens of de Gournay’s artisanal mastery.

De Gournay’s global dialogue continues in India as well. In January, the house previewed a hand-painted wallpaper created with designer Tarun Tahiliani at the restored British Residency in Hyderabad, marking Tahiliani’s 30th anniversary in fashion. The design, the first in a planned series, draws inspiration from the Pichwai tradition of Rajasthan, an intricate devotional art form defined by symmetry, symbolism, and nature. Hand-painted on gilded silk, each panel takes 140 hours to complete and depicts palms, lotus-filled waters, birdlife, and Mughal architectural elements rendered in a muted, tonal palette. The wallpaper is conceived not to merge traditions, but to place them in conversation, de Gournay’s legacy of hand-painted interiors meeting Tahiliani’s deep roots in Indian craft.

Presented within the British Residency, an early 19th-century landmark restored over two decades by the World Monuments Fund, the installation resonates with history. “

No other firm interprets dreams with such breadth, patience, and artistic rigor. From wallpapers and textiles to porcelain shaped and painted entirely by hand using centuries-old techniques, de Gournay remains devoted to excellence in every detail. It is a family company, yes, but also a custodian of craft, creating works meant not just to adorn interiors, but to endure. And if the de Gournay family has its way, they will enjoy every moment of bringing those dreams to life.