Design for a ceiling 1850 - 1900

This "Design for a Ceiling" was rendered by Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise using watercolor and graphite on paper. The material itself is humble, yet deployed to evoke opulence. Consider the social context: watercolor and graphite are relatively inexpensive materials, accessible to a wide range of artists and designers. Lachaise, however, uses them to propose a design that would be executed in costly materials – perhaps plaster, paint, and gilt. Note the frame, carefully drawn to suggest a three-dimensional molding. The ornament is similarly illusionistic, packed with classical motifs like scrolling acanthus leaves and stylized fleurs-de-lis. Clearly, this design is intended for a wealthy patron, someone who could afford to have such a ceiling created. Yet the drawing itself is an intimate, handmade object. It represents the labor of the artist, in contrast to the labor of the craftsmen who would ultimately realize the design on a grand scale. By considering these tensions, we see how this seemingly straightforward drawing is in fact a complex object, one that speaks to the social and economic realities of its time.