Vier wapenschilden 1874 - 1945

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made these four coats-of-arms on paper, but when? Was it a commission, or a speculative venture? The kind of painting that’s really more like obsessive drawing, it’s so intricate. I can imagine Cachet hunched over his work table, squinting through his spectacles to render these tiny details just so. And what kind of brush did he use? Did he have a favorite? It's so delicate, the application of the gold leaf, the rendering of the heraldic beasts. You see him working away, carefully mixing each pigment, patiently building up layer upon layer. The shields are arranged in a vertical stack, framed by these elaborate borders that sprout little flowers. The colour palette is rich and earthy, dominated by gold, red, and blue, like a medieval manuscript, but with a personal twist. It makes you wonder what other illuminated manuscripts Cachet may have seen, what his peers were up to, and how they might have inspired him to explore new ways of working and experimenting with the interplay between text and image. It's like a big conversation, a cross-pollination of ideas across time.