Design for a Chair Seat Cover

Anonymous, French, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small drawing shows a design for a seat cover in the Louis XVI style of artist such as Pierre Ranson (French, Paris 1736-1786 Paris). He was specialized in making designs for textiles, from tapestries to wall covering silks and other examples of upholstery, all decorated in the more delicate style that emerged during the neoclassical period which was characterized by thin bundles and garlands of flowers, trophies with pastoral attributes and pastel colors. As is shown by this design, fifty years later, the style would come in vogue again albeit just one of many. 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.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art