Design for a Haircomb with Stylized Exotic Flowers and a Rope
Drawing with a design for a haircomb, possibly designed by French jeweller Jacques Caillot around 1900, part of an album of drawings by various artists for individual pieces of jewelry, containing a variety of designs in the Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as some pieces in historic period styles. The haircomb in this drawing consists of six gray teeth and a rectangular body with a gray rope tied around the upper-left corner, forming a bow that holds two bluish-green stems with stylized bluish-green leaves and stylized exotic flowers with ling, thin, scrolling purple petals and pistils. This design reveals the aesthetic of late Art Nouveau jewelry style, designed, among others, by Rene Lalique, which drew inspiration from antiquity and japonism, abandoning the exclusive use traditional precious stones in the manufacture of jewels, and using, instead, a combination of gold, gemstones, semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, ivory and horn, enamel, and glass, to create colorful, powerful, and sinuous designs, often presenting animal and other figurative motifs. On the verso of the paper, there is an incomplete sketch in graphite of a vertical tube with a thin rectangle on the right side, containing a vertical, undulating line.
Artwork Details
- Title: Design for a Haircomb with Stylized Exotic Flowers and a Rope
- Artist: Jacques Caillot (French, 1823–1905) (?)
- Date: ca. 1900
- Medium: Graphite, pen and black ink, watercolor, and gouache on buff paper
- Dimensions: Sheet: 9 15/16 × 6 9/16 in. (25.2 × 16.7 cm)
Album: 14 3/16 in. × 11 in. × 9/16 in. (36 × 28 × 1.5 cm) - Classifications: Albums, Drawings, Ornament & Architecture
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1953
- Object Number: 53.670.14
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Jacques Caillot
ca. 1830–1920
Jacques Caillot
ca. 1900
Jacques Caillot
n.d.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
1843
Carl Georg Anton Graeb
1860–84
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