Interior Elevation of Reims Cathedral with the Rood Screen and Throne for the Coronation of King Louis XVIII
Medium
Pen and black ink, with colored wash
Dimensions
29 1/2 x 22 in. (74.9 x 55.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1956
Accession Number
56.559.5
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the grandeur of Reims Cathedral through this exquisite 1815 drawing by Percier and Pierre Françoisard Fontaine, two leading Neoclassical architects who shaped Napoleonic and Restoration-era interiors. Titled *Interior Elevation of Reims Cathedral with the Rood Screen Throne for the Coronation of King Louis XVIII*, it captures the soaring nave, intricate rood screen, and a designed throne prepared for the Bourbon monarch's ceremonial restoration. Reims, the historic coronation site of French kings since Clovis in 496, symbolized continuity amid the turbulent shift from Empire to monar...
About the Artist
Charles Percier|Pierre François Léonard Fontaine · 1764–1838
Charles Percier (1764–1838) rose from humble origins in Paris, where his mother laundered for Marie-Antoinette and his father served as a porter at the Tuileries Palace, to become one of France's most influential neoclassical architects and designers. From age twelve, he attended a free drawing school for indigent students, honing his skills in the studio of painter Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée be...