Design for a ceiling 1850 - 1900

Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise created this ceiling design on paper, using graphite and watercolor. These are traditional art materials, yet the design itself points to a world of skilled labor. Think of the plasterers who would execute this scheme, high on scaffolds, carefully following plans like these. The rendering gives us some sense of the intended color scheme, but the real work would come in translating this two-dimensional image to a three-dimensional architectural space. The architecture would already have been in place; this design provides a kind of ornamental capstone. There is a tremendous amount of handwork that is implied by this image, a whole world of craft and design that often goes unremarked because it is literally above our heads. Lachaise’s delicate drawing gives us a glimpse of that labor.