Design for a Settee
Medium
Graphite
Dimensions
sheet: 8 1/2 x 12 in. (21.6 x 30.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.63.269
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate graphite drawing, titled *Design for a Settee*, the elegance of 18th-century furniture design by anonymous German and British artists. Created on a modest sheet measuring 8½ x 12 inches, it exemplifies the preparatory sketches used by workshops to plan ornate seating. Settees—compact sofas popular in lavish interiors—reflected the era's growing taste for comfort and decoration amid the Rococo and early Neoclassical movements, blending Continental flair with British practicality. Rendered in graphite, a versatile medium prized for its fine lines and subtle shading, the drawing hi...