Design for the Decoration of Firearms 1770 - 1830

This intricate design for firearm decoration, created by Nicolas Noël Boutet, exemplifies the delicate and elaborate ornamentation popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Boutet, a French artist known for his meticulous detail and mastery of line, employed intricate floral motifs and swirling tendrils in this drawing, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The design, with its delicate flourishes and geometric symmetry, would have been applied to the surface of a firearm, transforming a functional object into a work of art.