Design for a ceiling with trompe l'oeil balustrade and sky
Medium
Graphite, pen and black ink, and watercolor
Dimensions
Overall: 14 11/16 x 10 9/16 in. (37.3 x 26.8 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Dodge Fund, 1967
Accession Number
67.827.489
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 19th century, architects and designers like Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise Eugène-Pierre Gourdet intricate preparatory drawings for grand interior decorations. This 1869 design for a ceiling, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, exemplifies their skill in ornamental architecture. Measuring just over 14 by 10 inches, it a trompe l'oeil balustrade—a masterful illusion of a three-dimensional stone railing—opening onto a vast, ethereal sky, inviting viewers to imagine peering out from an opulent room. Rendered in graphite, pen and black ink, and wa...
About the Artist
Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise|Eugène-Pierre Gourdet · 1897–1897
Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise, born Jules Lachaise on September 2, 1836, in Paris, emerged as a prominent French painter and draughtsman specializing in lavish interior decorations during the Second Empire and beyond. Little is known about his early life and formal training, though he married Berthe Gourdet in 1866, forging a close professional partnership with her brother, the decorator Eugène-Pi...