Design for wallpaper featuring shells, waterlilies, and cattails 1830 - 1897

Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise created this wallpaper design featuring shells, waterlilies, and cattails using watercolor and graphite. The artist has skillfully used the fluidity of watercolor to capture the intricate details of the natural world, as well as the ornate, almost baroque elements. Notice how the graphite adds a subtle definition, grounding the composition. This design speaks to the broader social context of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period marked by the rise of industrial production and the democratization of design. Wallpaper, once a luxury, became increasingly accessible to middle-class homes. The design process itself reflects these shifts. Lachaise, while an artist, was also engaging with the commercial demands of the decorative arts industry. The careful rendering of each motif, the repetition, all point to the eventual mass production of the wallpaper, inviting us to consider the labor involved in bringing art into everyday life. It blurs the lines between art and design.