Schets naar een muurdecoratie 1750 - 1793

Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin sketched this design for a wall decoration in graphite, sometime in the late 18th century. Although this is just a sketch, we can imagine it in situ, as part of an elaborate interior. Lavallée-Poussin would have been working for wealthy patrons in France during the reign of Louis XVI. The sketch gives us insight into the kind of imagery these patrons favored: classical figures, garlands, and other ornamental motifs. The blowing of the horn is an announcement, and the artist is likely to have been influenced by a tradition of celebrating monarchy. But the French revolution of 1789 changed everything for artists like Lavallée-Poussin, disrupting the system of patronage that had sustained them. He died only four years after the execution of Louis XVI. To understand this sketch more fully, we might consult archives of interior design, studies of aristocratic taste, and records of the institutions that fostered artistic talent in pre-revolutionary France.