Design for a Ceiling
Medium
Brush and yellow, red, blue, green and brown watercolor, and dark blue gouache, over graphite or lead, on cream paper
Dimensions
10-3/16 x 13-15/16 in. (25.8 x 35.4 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Fletcher Fund, 1961
Accession Number
61.675.4
Tags
Art Historical Context
"Design for a Ceiling" Giovanni Larciani, known as the "Master the Kress Landscapes," a captivating 18th-century preparatory from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection. as a blueprint for ornate ceiling decoration, features delicate motifs of birds, flowers and leaves, evoking grandeur of Baroque and Rococo interiors in European palaces and villas. These natural elements were popular in the period, symbolizing abundance and harmony with nature, and would have guided frescoes or stucco work in opulent spaces. Executed on cream paper with brush and vibrant watercolors—...
About the Artist
Giovanni Larciani ("Master of the Kress Landscapes") · 1700–1800
Giovanni di Lorenzo Larciani (1484–1527), a Florentine painter known initially as the "Master of the Kress Landscapes," emerged from obscurity in the mid-1990s through the scholarship of Louis Waldman, who linked him to documents including a 1521 contract for an altarpiece. Born and active in Florence until his death, Larciani specialized in religious scenes enriched by vivid, atmospheric landscap...