Important Painted Canvas, Painted Ceiling, 19th Empire

- Important painted canvas having served as a painted ceiling, work of the 19th century, France.

- This painted canvas, remarkable for its size and its original use (ceiling), presents a great richness of decoration. Organized in compartments, like feigned coffers, each of them contains a prolific decoration elegantly declining a varied vegetal ornamental vocabulary. Starting with the central field, an octagon with a green background whose contours are underlined by a frieze of delicate stylized palmettes painted in orange and yellow with a golden effect. It has in its center several concentric circles with varied motifs painted in golden yellow; (from the inside to the outside) a rosette, a torus of laurel, a garland of foliage inhabited by birds and human figures of terms supporting baskets filled with at the four cardinal points a caduceus, a torus of small flowers. The green octagonal compartment is surrounded by a listel and an orange-yellow frieze imitating a woodwork frame. At the four corners, spandrels with a red background offer a pleasant contrast with the green color of the center. In these spandrels, golden yellow ornaments are displayed respecting the law of the frame; a central medallion on which appears a head facing crowned with a triumphal laurel wreath, this medallion, is surrounded by scrolls of flowering plants. The side compartments are painted in grisaille, as if to imitate sculpted reliefs, with a decoration of motifs related to plants.

- The ornamental vocabulary as well as the choice of the color palette, combining green and red, refer to the 19th century. They are characteristic of the neoclassical decorations of the Empire period whose style was largely influenced by the discoveries of ancient painted decorations from Herculaneum and Pompeii.

- Painting on canvas. Condition of use, wear and tear and gaps are to be noted (see photos).

- Dimensions: 380 X 306 cm