Dining Room Elevation in a Simplified Third Pompeian Style 1870 - 1890

John Gregory Crace made this watercolor elevation of a dining room sometime in the 19th century. It's a design for a room in what was called the Pompeian style. The drawing shows a scheme for painting walls, ceilings, and trim, with very precise detail. In its day, this wasn't exactly fine art. Instead, it was a proposal, a highly skilled form of salesmanship, meant to convince a wealthy client to invest in a particular look for their home. It reflects a world where taste was manufactured through intense labor. The effect depended on specialist tradesmen, who could execute the painting and decoration to Crace’s specifications. The architecture itself is just a container. The real value is in the layers of skilled work. Considered in this way, this drawing embodies a whole network of social relations – between designer, client, and the many anonymous makers who would have brought it to life. It demonstrates that even a simple watercolor can tell a complex story.