Design for Console Table 1850 - 1904

Robert William Hume rendered this design for a console table in graphite and watercolor. Notice how the natural qualities of the materials – graphite for precise lines, watercolor for soft infill – guide the eye through the elaborate Louis Quatorze style. This piece isn't just a sketch; it's a proposition about labor and value. The design evokes the skilled carving required to realize it in wood and marble. But on paper, the artistry of production is collapsed into a single image. The intense labor involved in the production process appears effortless. Designs like this circulated among workshops and clients, mediating the distance between imagination and production. They democratized aspiration. Hume's drawing invites us to consider how taste, class, and the aesthetics of labor are intertwined, even in something as seemingly simple as a table.