A Circular ceiling design with clouds and roses 1850 - 1900

Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise sketched this circular ceiling design with watercolor, showing clouds and roses. The clouds here, rendered with a light wash, evoke not just the meteorological phenomenon, but a classical motif of ascension and the divine. Consider the 'Oculus' in the Pantheon, where the open sky above merges the earthly with the celestial, a space often populated by clouds. Now, observe how Lachaise frames this sky with roses. The rose, a symbol steeped in Venus, love, and beauty, adds a layer of earthly passion to the ethereal scene. This combination—sky and roses—reappears throughout art history, yet its emotional resonance shifts. In medieval tapestries, roses might symbolize the Virgin Mary, while in later vanitas paintings, their ephemeral beauty serves as a reminder of mortality. Here, Lachaise perhaps seeks a synthesis, a way to unite the transient beauty of life with the eternal expanse of the heavens, engaging our deepest longings and fears. This cycle—from sacred emblem to memento mori—reveals how motifs are never truly still, but constantly reborn.