Embroidery Design for a Waistcoat with Garlands of Flowers and Leaves

Anonymous, French, 18th century French

Not on view

Drawing with an embroidery design for a waistcoat, created in France in the 1770s or 1780s presenting the kind of colorful garlands with natural flowers and leaves that were typical of the design for menswear at the time of Louis XVI. The design has some borders of the waistcoat and the buttonholes marked with yellow lines, as well as a pocket lapel, which might have been executed with gold thread in the actual garment. The bottom of the pocket lapel and the corners have additional offsetting thorns rendered with yellow, which might have also been embroidered with gold thread. The center of the pocket lapel is decorated with a bundle of thin branches with green leaves and blue and purple flowers, over a bed of brown leaves, and below it hands a large garland with flowers colored with shades of brown and green, and daisies and roses, among a variety of flowers, colored with shades of purple, pink and blue. The upper half of the design also shows a thin garland of small leaves colored with shades of brown running vertically from one buttonhole to the next, and the buttonholes are decorated with different types of floral motifs: the first one has some grass sprigs, colored with green, and tiny yellow flowers; the second has a bundle with green leaves, a pink rose, and other stylized flowers with purple and blue petals. The different variants of the design would have been presented to the consumer for him to choose their preferred type of design for the waistcoat.

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