Design for a Chair Seat Cover with an Ornamental Frame with Two Restling Putti with Hanging Garlands of Leaves and Flowers Inside a Larger Ornamental Frame Featuring a Heart-Shape Motif

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.
This design is made up of an ornamental frame rendered with shades of yellow to simulate a golden finish with a blue background and two wrestling putti colored with a lighter shade of blue. The frame rests upon an acantus leaf-inspired ornament that flanks the inside of a larger, thinner ornamental frame with the shape of the chair seat, and is adorned by hanging garlands of green leaves and flowers colored with yellow, carmine, and shades of pink. The outer frame is also rendered to simulate a golden finish and is decorated with scrolls of shades of purple and blue, as well as stylized leaves of light greenish-blue color. The scrolls at the top center of the frame form a heart-shape motif, from which two large scrolls with acanthus leaf motifs and stylized exotic flowers, colored with green and lilac, emerge. An undulating ribbon of pastel purple color interlaces with these scrolls and the heart shape. A thin garland of green leaves and flowers colored with yellow, carmine, and shades of pink hangs from the bottom of the outer frame. The background is colored with cream on the inside of the this frame, and with light gray on the outside.
The design is placed on the same paper as a similar chair seat cover (49.50.184(a)), possibly meant to be part of the same chair as this.