Design for a Rug with Ornamental Frames and Garlands and Festoons of Leaves, Flowers, and Ribbons Over a Background of Arabesques

Rectangular sheet of paper with a design for a rug from the second half of the nineteenth century, designed by the manufacture of textiles and rugs, Braquenié et cie. Founded by Pierre-Antoine Doineau and his wife Louise-Desirée Doineau in 1823, the manufacture was bought in 1858 by brothers Alexandre et Charles-Henri Braquenié and changed its name to Braquenié et cie., also known as Braquenié Frères. Known for its Indian fabrics, cotton, toiles the Jouy, carpets and rugs, and embodying the style of the French Classical Revival, the house produced fine textiles that went off to decorate some of the most important European courts under the rule of Napoleon III, as well as the palaces of the Louvre, the Vatican, and Chambord.
This design forms part of the Classical and Renaissance Revival that took place from about 1850, where the interest on the art and architecture from Ancient Rome and the 15th and 16th centuries was propelled by archaeological discoveries in Greece, Italy and Egypt. Through this style, Classical and Renaissance pieces of art and design were reinterpreted in a variety of forms and motifs, and classical figures, scrolling decorations, strapwork, and grotesques and moresques, became central element in design. This Revival was characterized by the use of design motifs that alluded to Classical Antiquity, including vases and trophies with pastoral attributes, classical figures and cameos, a mixture of real and fantastic figures, and swags and festoons. These swags and festoons comprised garlands of fabric and ribbon, as well as thin bundles and garlands of flowers and husks colored with pastels. The scale of this design is clearly not true to life and it is not unlikely that this drawing was made for a sample book of an upholsterer, to be shown to the customer as one of many different styles to choose from.
This design presents the upper-right hand corner of what would become the rug, showing the technique used by designers at the time to effectively create symmetrical works for the decorative arts. The design contains a central ornamental frame containing a large bundle of flowers and leaves over a blue background, and decorated by an undulating garland of flowers and leaves. This frame is contained inside a larger, rectangular frame with a cream background that borders the mat, over a background of arabesques rendered with shades of light blue. This frame is also decorated with undulating garlands of flowers and leaves, hung with ribbons tied with bows from the rectangular frame and the garlands surrounding the inner frame. It is adorned by an ornamental frame in the corner, which contains a bundle of stylized roses of shades of pink and carmine that rests over a shell-shaped motif. Decorated with garlands of pink roses, and containing stylized leaves, the S- and C-curves of this frame form a complex ornamental motif. A simpler ornamental frame rests on the lower right-hand side of the design, also containing a bundle of flowers. The outer border of the rug also contains arabesque motifs, rendered with two shades of blue that are darker that those on the inside. All frames are rendered with shades of yellow and light brown to simulate a golden finish. The leaves are colored with shades of green, the ribbon festoons are colored with lilac, and the flowers are colored with a variety of pastels, including cream, carmine, yellow, lilac, and shades of pink.
The design contains a grid inscribed with graphite on top of the drawing, as well as some annotations, revealing the process of scaling-up the design that the textile manufactures would use to translate the drawing into a life-sized rug.