Design for a Stage Set: Highly Decorated Interior of a Palace 1740 - 1770

Giuseppe Valeriani made this stage set design with pen and brown ink on paper in the eighteenth century. But let’s consider the ‘real’ materials in this drawing – the luxurious marbles, textiles, plasterwork, and gilding it represents. Valeriani never intended for these to actually be realized, yet this drawing hints at the world of labour required to bring such a palace into being. There were quarries to be mined, trees to be felled, plaster to be mixed and applied, and all of it by hand. Then came the skilled artisans: carvers, gilders, cabinetmakers, and weavers. Notice how Valeriani has given us the barest suggestion of this incredible expenditure of labour. His sketch is wispy and thin. It is easy, effortless, aristocratic. In fact, it presents an ideal world where the realities of production are edited out. So, next time you see a grand palace, remember not only the design, but also the enormous amount of work that went into it, and the lives of those who made it possible.