Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf

Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf (11 June 1738 – 6 October 1815) was a French naturalized German industrialist. He became famous for founding the royal manufacture of printed cottons of Jouy-en-Josas where the toile de Jouy was manufactured.

Oberkampf was born in Wiesenbach, Germany, into a family of dyers. He traveled to educate himself and initially worked in Mulhouse as an engraver, then from October 1758 in Paris as a colourist.

In 1759, Oberkampf proposed a partnership with the Swiss for the creation of a manufacture of cottons printed with engraved wood boards in Jouy-in-Josas. The first fabrics were successfully printed in May 1760. In 1764, Oberkampf increased his factory to a vast area of 18,000 m². The number of employees grew quickly and reached 900 workmen in 1774.

In 1770, Oberkampf who had then lived in France for ten years, was made a naturalised French citizen, along with his brother. Around this period, an important technical evolution enabled his company to considerably increase its production: the wooden boards were replaced with copper plates, also engraved, but flexible and able to be fixed on cylindrical drums. The company entered the era of mechanisation.

In 1783, the factory received from king Louis XVI of France the title of "royal manufacturer" and in 1787, Oberkampf received from the king the title of squire as well as the right to use arms and his device "Recte et vigilanter (uprightness and vigilance)".

In 1785 Oberkampf invented the first machine for printing wallpaper, and shortly afterwards, Nicolas-Louis Robert designed a process for manufacturing endless rolls of wall-paper.

On February 7, 1790, the reforms of the French Revolution led him to be appointed mayor of Jouy-en-Josas. In 1794 his daughter Émilie was born. Influenced by the British Infant Schools, she would become the pioneer of the nursery school.

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