Doorway Designs
Medium
Bound print
Classification
Bound print
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council
Accession Number
1921-6-216-14
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
Gilles-Marie Oppenord (2–1742), a leading French architect and designer of the Régence style—a playful transition from the grandeur of Louis XIV's Baroque to the lighter Rococo—created intricate ornamental designs that influenced European interiors. *Doorway Designs*, a bound print published posthumously between 1749 and 1761, compiles his elegant architectural motifs for doorways. These patterns, likely engraved and bound into a volume, reflect the era's fascination with asymmetry, scrolling foliage, and shell-like curves, hallmarks of Oppenord's work at Versailles and Parisian hôtels. As a ...