Design for a Chair Back Cover with a Squatting Half-Human Grotesque Figure Inside an Ornamental Frame Made of Two Cornucopias Holding Bundles of Leaves and Fruits and Scrolls of Leaves and Flowers

Rectangular sheet of paper with a design for a chair back cover from the second half of the nineteenth, forming 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 is made up of a half-human grotesque figure, rendered with brownish-gray color to simulate possibly a copper finish, which squats over an ornamental frame with two cornucopias on the sides, and decorated by scrolls of various types, rendered with shades of yellow to imitate a golden finish. Each cornucopia holds a bundle of leaves of green color and fruits of yellor and red color, possibly apples or apricots, from which vegetal scrolls with leaves and flowers, colored with green, blue, carmine and pink, stem out to complete the upper part of the frame. From the outer end of each cornucopia hangs a piece of a pink textile, tied to the bottom scrolls of the frame. The background of the design is of green color inside a gray frame.
The design is placed on the same paper as a similar chair seat cover (49.50.197(b)), possibly meant to be part of the same chair as this.