Project for a Domed Building with Colonnaded Façade
18th century
Medium
Pen and black ink, brush and gray and pink wash; scale in pieds at bottom
Dimensions
12 15/16 x 16 15/16 in. (32.9 x 43 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1970
Accession Number
1970.736.12
Tags
Art Historical Context
This exquisite 18th-century architectural drawing, titled *Project for a Domed with Colonnaded Faade*, offers a glimpse into the imaginative world of French design during the Enlightenment era. Created anonymously by a skilled French draftsman, it depicts a structure crowned by a prominent dome and flanked by a colonnade, evoking the classical grandeur of ancient Roman temples reimagined for modern patrons. The precise scale in *pieds* (French feet) at bottom underscores its practical intent as a working proposal, likely for a palace, church, or public edifice amid France's architectural boom ...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...