Design for the decoration of a ceiling with a border of strapwork and a central filagree medallion
Medium
watercolor, gouache, and gold paint on wove paper; mounted on blue wove paper
Dimensions
Overall: 10 3/8 x 14 13/16 in. (26.4 x 37.6 cm) image: 8 1/8 x 11 3/8 in. (20.6 x 28.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Dodge Fund, 1967
Accession Number
67.827.250
Art Historical Context
This exquisite design for a ceiling decoration, created collaboratively by French artists Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise and Eugène-Pierre Gourdet between 1830 and 1897, showcases the ornate aesthetic of 19th-century interior design. At its center gleams a delicate filigreeallion, encircled by intricate strapwork borders—motifs evoking intertwined leather straps that hark back to Renaissance and Mannerist traditions, revived during the eclectic decorative revivals of the era. Such patterns were popular in grand European homes and public spaces, blending historicism with contemporary opulence. ...
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...