Design for a ceiling painted with trompe l'oeil clouds
Medium
watercolor, gouache, and gold paint on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 14 3/4 x 10 3/8 in. (37.5 x 26.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Dodge Fund, 1967
Accession Number
67.827.344
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate design for a ceiling painted with trompe l’œil clouds was created by the French artists Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise and Eugène-Pierre Gourdet between 1830 and 1897. Rendered in watercolor, gouache, and gold paint on wove paper, the small sheet—measuring just under fifteen inches high—serves as a preparatory study rather than a finished mural. The medium’s translucent layers and luminous highlights allowed the artists to capture the soft, shifting appearance of clouds while planning how they would interact with architectural moldings and natural light. Trompe l’œil techniques, ...
About the Artist
Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise|Eugène-Pierre Gourdet · 1897–1897
Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise, born Jules Lachaise on September 2, 1836, in Paris, emerged as a prominent French painter and draughtsman specializing in lavish interior decorations during the Second Empire and beyond. Little is known about his early life and formal training, though he married Berthe Gourdet in 1866, forging a close professional partnership with her brother, the decorator Eugène-Pi...