Embroidery Design for a Waistcoat with Garlands of Fruits, Flowers and Leaves
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 the borders of the waistcoat and the pocket lapel marked with purple lines, and they might have been embroidered on the final garment, perhaps using luxurious threads made up of gold or silver. The pocket lapel is decorated with a horizontal bundle of stylized flowers with blue petals and yellow-and-orange pistils, flower buds of the same kind, and green branches with tiny leaves and stylized, elongated leaves, from which hangs, towards the right bottom corner of the waistcoat front, a thin garland with green leaves, stylized flowers with pink petals and yellow pistils and flower buds with pink petals, possibly of the same kind of flower. Towards the bottom-center of the waistcoat hangs a piece of blue mesh holding a bundle of stylized fruits, including a purple peat, a bundle of purple and green leaves, two round fruits, one executed with shades of purple and blue and the other with shades of brown and yellow, what seems to be an exotic melon, with yellow shell, orange pulp and yellow seeds, and a branch with stylized leaves rendered with shades of green and stylized blue strawberries. The left end of the blue mesh is tied by thin branches executed with yellow and red, and it is decorated on the bottom with small aquamarine branches with tiny leaves and small stylized flowers. The pattern continues above the left end of the mesh holding the fruits, presenting more of these stylized flowers and fruits on the central border of the waistcoat, where the buttons would go.
Artwork Details
- Title: Embroidery Design for a Waistcoat with Garlands of Fruits, Flowers and Leaves
- Artist: Anonymous, French, 18th century
- Date: ca. 1770–90
- Medium: Watercolor and Gouache
- Dimensions: Sheet: 11 15/16 × 16 1/4 in. (30.3 × 41.3 cm)
- Classifications: Drawings, Ornament & Architecture
- Credit Line: Gift of A. Chapin Rogers
- Object Number: 49.76
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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