Design for a Valance with Bundles and Garlands of Flowers and Leaves Decorated with Gardening Tools upon which Small Birds Rest

Rectangular sheet of paper with a design for a valance from the second half of the nineteenth century, inspired on the style of Louis XVI, forming part of the Neo-Classical Revival that took place in France and Britain from the 1850s on. The style was 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.
The design is made up of thin garlands and bundles of flowers and leaves decorated with gardening tools hanging from ornamental scrolls rendered in shades of yellow and ocre to simulate gold, over a pale blue ground, inside an ornamental frame colored with shades of yellow an ocre over a dark red ground. The flowers are colored with pastels: pink, carmine, orange and pink; the leaves are colored with shades of green. Among the gardening tools, straw hats, scrapes and shovels can be distinguished. Small birds also rest in some of the bundles on the side, with feathers colored in shades of grey and orange. A larger rooster with feathers colored with grey and orange can be seen resting over the bundle of flowers in the upper part of the valance.