Design for Cabinet Pianoforte, Louis Quatorze Style
1835–1900
Medium
Pen and ink, graphite, watercolor
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Jessie F. Hume, 1930
Accession Number
30.16.10
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the opulent world of 19-century design with Robert William Hume's *Design for Cabinet Pianoforte, Louis Quatorze Style* (1835–1900). This intricate drawing depicts a grand upright piano cabinet inspired by the lavish Baroque aesthetics of France's Louis XIV era (1643–1715). Hume, a British designer active during the Victorian period, captures the era's revivalist spirit, blending functional furniture with architectural ornamentation. The cabinet pianoforte, an early form of upright piano, would have been both a musical instrument and a showpiece for fashionable parlors. Rendered in ...
About the Artist
Robert William Hume · 1816–1904
Robert William Hume (1816–1904) was a British artist and craftsman who contributed to the documentation of decorative arts and design in nineteenth-century Britain. Working during the Victorian era, Hume was part of a generation of artists and designers who combined artistic skill with antiquarian interests, producing detailed studies and records of historical objects, ornamental patterns, and arc...