Design for a Chair Back Cover with an Ornamental Frame Formed by a Garland of Leaves and Flowers with an Interlacing Ribbon that Forms a Bow from which a Crown Motif with Monogram Hangs

Rectangular sheet of paper with a design for a chair back cover 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 an ornamental frame formed by a garland of small leaves and flowers with a ribbon of blue color with yellow highlights interlacing around it, forming a bow at the top center of the frame, from which a crown motif with a monogram with hanging garlands hangs over a pastel yellow ground. The crown motif and two scrolling acanthus leaves that lie on the frame below it, are rendered with shades of yellow and ocre to simulate a gold finish; the crown is also adorned with stones of carmine color, possibly to simulate rubies. The design presents two options for the monogram: at first sight, a monogram in the same tone of pastel yellow as the inside of the frame contains a monogram made from a thin garland of tiny leaves and flowers; this monogram is on a tiny piece of paper pasted on one side over the design, and when it is lifted it reveals a blue frame with a simple monogram in pastel yellow. The ribbon is colored with blue and yellow, the leaves with green, and the flowers with shades of red, orange and pink. The outside of the frame is colored with magenta.