Canapé 1895 - 1935

Curator: What strikes me first is the delicate, almost ghostly presence of this couch. It's like a whisper of a past era, captured in shades of pale blue. Editor: Precisely. We're looking at a print titled "Canapé," attributed to Léon Laroche, created sometime between 1895 and 1935. It’s an example of graphic art, most likely intended as a design catalogue illustration. You see “Le Garde-Meuble” across the top, so, design inventory, really. Curator: A catalogue! It feels almost sacrilegious to consider this ethereal drawing as merely functional. The lines are so elegant, the shading so subtle… it's more poem than product, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Well, its purpose, and likely audience, dictated that refinement. Such publications codified tastes and trends. Looking at its style, the print presents us with a vision of Neoclassicism, a design style intended to echo back to ancient aesthetics of political authority. You can think of it almost like political propaganda…but for interior design. Curator: Propaganda for pastel seating! The very thought amuses me. Although, thinking about it, what better way to cement power than to quite literally sit on it? What exactly do you think this communicates? Editor: Absolutely! And what is the setting for Louis XV furniture in the late 19th-early 20th century? Nostalgia. The old world order was eroding and the old regime of wealth, nobility, and privilege felt more distant than ever. What better way to signal refinement and connection to powerful institutions than to purchase a new sofa intended to remind all visitors that you remember the glory days! Curator: And yet, looking at it now, it evokes something almost fragile, the vulnerability of a bygone era rendered in the gentlest of hues. Perhaps the best symbols of eras past are like that – shadows that still evoke power. Editor: Exactly! It’s also a physical removal from the thing represented, the "real" sofa. The further we get from that lost moment the more these types of symbols matter. Thanks for considering those important questions! Curator: My pleasure. A gentle echo, indeed. I won’t look at furniture the same way now.