History
The art of decoupage has a long and fascinating history that is traceable to the 12th century in China.  Over the years, decoupage has had many famous adherents including Madame de Pompadour, Lord Byron, Marie Antoinette, Beau Brummel as well as Matisse and Picasso.

Polish and German artisans used cut paper for decoration, developing enormous skill with folded coloured papers which were cut into birds, and flowers.

It is oriental lacquer work that forms the basis for the development of 17th century techniques which we tend to associate with todays craft.   Fashionable lacquered objects were in demand and soon outstripped supply:  as a result Venetian depentore (lacquerers) began to produce fake work to keep up with demand.  This work is known as lacc contrfatta (counterfeit laquer).  Apprentices hand coloured the prints of leading artists, cut them out, pasted them to a surface to be decorated and covered with many layers of lacquer to produce furniture and objet d'art that closely resembled the popular work from China and Japan.

During the 1930s, the craft was further developed in the USA where avanced shaping and sculpting methods were introduced.

The craft rapidly developed from pure layering techniques to actula paper sculpting.

The art of 3d picture sculture, sometimes still referred to as 3d decoupage is the latest development of the art, and is one of the premier crafts practiced by today's craft artist.

Modern Developments

I follow the 3d picture sculpture technique, and use from 3 to 6 cut out images to create a sculptured picture.  It is in the family of 3d decoupage (also known as Papertole in US and Canada) but is not just the construction of layers to create an image as is now common under the 3d heading in TV programmes and on the Internet.  With cutting, shaping, setting up backgounds, glueing and writting the greeting by hand, each card can take up to 2 hours to complete.  For example, the Poppy in a Vase has 29 cut-out pieces to be shaped and glued.