Design for a Lampas Silk with a Triumphal Chariot on a Cloud
ca. 1770–75
Medium
Watercolor and gouache over graphite underdrawing
Dimensions
Sheet: 12 5/8 × 9 1/16 in. (32 × 23 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019
Accession Number
2019.282.5
Art Historical Context
This delicate design by Philippe de Lasalle captures the elegance of late eighteenth-century French decorative arts. Created around 1770–75, the sheet served as a preparatory study for a lampas silk, a luxurious woven textile prized by European aristocracy. Rendered in luminous watercolor and gouache over graphite, the composition features a triumphal chariot floating on clouds—an allegorical motif evoking classical mythology and the grandeur of courtly spectacle. Lasalle, a leading designer based in Lyon, helped transform the city’s renowned silk industry through his inventive patterns that ...
About the Artist
Philippe de Lasalle · 1723–1804
Philippe de Lasalle (1723–1804) was born on September 2 in the small town of Seyssel in the Ain department of France, the son of a local finance official. Orphaned at just one year old, he was raised by relatives and moved to Lyon at age fourteen to live with an uncle. There, he began his artistic training as an apprentice to the painter Daniel Sarrabat, a prominent Lyonnais figure known for instr...