Antique Print-DECORATIVE-COMPOSITION-SOLDIER-TOOLS-Delafosse-c.1768

Decorative composition, depicting two artful clusters of objects and tools suspended over a smaller arrangement at the bottom of the page. They are in the style of Baroque trophies of the Louis XIV period, here adapted to the transitional neoclassical style of the mid 18th Century. This one shows trophies with shield and poultry helmet

Made by after an anonymous artist.

Medium: Engraving with hand colouring on hand laid (verge) paper.

Sheet size: 17.5 x 27 cm (6.89 x 10.63 inch). Image size: 16.2 x 25 cm. (6.38 x 9.84 inch).

Condition: good, given age. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling. Please study scan carefully.

DECORATIVE-COMPOSITION-SOLDIER-TOOLS | PCO-C43-42

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

These are from a large collection of architectural designs (including decorative arts designs) of furniture, upholstery and curtains, urns, clocks, chandeliers, candlesticks, sconces, trophies and goldsmith’s work. Overall, the series includes studies of objects isolated against a simple background as well as others in more complex arrangements such as various objects and paintings on a table. They were published in three series by Jean-Charles de la Fosse, an architect, ornamental designer and engraver: 1. ‘Nouvelle Iconologie Historique ou Attributs Hi?roglyphiques’ [New Historic Iconology or Hieroglyphic Attributes], 2. ‘D?corations, Sculptures, Orf?vreries et Ornements divers’ [Decorations, Sculptures, Goldsmithing and Various Ornaments] and 3. ‘Ameublement’ [Furniture]. The designs reflect the latest neoclassical tastes, as interpreted in decorative arts, of the Louis XVI period. The prints were collected by aristocrats interested in the latest styles and served as source material for their architects and decorative arts designers, who drew upon the prints as inspiration for designing furniture and decorative arts.

Biography engraver: Jean Charles Delafosse (1734-1789) was a French architect, ornamental designer, architect, and draughtsman. Apprenticed for a time to a sculptor, by 1767 he styled himself an ‘architect and professor of design.’ He published the first volume of his most important work, Nouvelle Iconologie Historique [New Historical Iconology] in 1768, containing 110 plates of his designs for furniture, decorative arts and architectural ornaments in the Louis XVI style, most of which he also engraved himself. As the title implies, each design also has specific iconological or symbolic content. Delafosse also manipulated abstract shapes in ingenious and innovative ways to create spatial illusions and ambiguity. Long before late 20th-century Postmodernism he exhibited an allied sensibility: according to the Grove Dictionary of Art, ‘He divorced familiar architectural elements?the base of a column, a pediment, a single Ionic volute?from their usual functions and placed them in new and witty contexts.”.