Ovale omlijsting met arabesken 1658 - 1719

Nicolas Guérard created this small engraving of an oval frame with arabesques in France during the late 17th or early 18th century. The print is a virtuoso display of the kind of decorative vocabulary that flourished under the patronage of the French royal court. The image's elaborate ornamentation speaks to the social function of art in that period. The 'arabesques' or scrolling foliage, the stylized shells, and the carefully rendered garlands of beads all declare the owner's cultivated taste and familiarity with classical motifs, while the empty oval in the center would have been filled with the portrait of a family member, a coat of arms, or some other heraldic device. Prints like this circulated widely. Studying them today, alongside other examples of period ornament, and perhaps inventories of aristocratic collections, allows us to reconstruct the visual culture of the time and to understand how art shored up social distinction.