Preliminary Study for Huntington House Ceiling c. 1893

Elihu Vedder made this study for a ceiling decoration with graphite, colored pencil, and metallic paint. Vedder was part of the American Renaissance, a time when artists looked to classical and Renaissance art for inspiration to create a new, distinctly American art and culture. The Huntington House ceiling speaks to a broader cultural moment in the United States, at the turn of the 20th century, when wealthy industrialists sought to emulate European aristocratic taste. By commissioning artists to create elaborate, historically-inspired interiors, patrons like Collis Huntington hoped to legitimize their status and wealth. Vedder’s design, like much art of this period, reflects the cultural elite's embrace of art as a means of social distinction. To understand this work fully, we might look to period writings on interior design, architectural history, and the biographies of both the artist and patron. These shed light on the social ambitions embedded within the art of the Gilded Age.