Canapé, fauteuil en stoel 1895

Curator: This piece, "Canapé, fauteuil en stol" – a sofa, armchair, and chair – is from 1895, credited to Léon Laroche. It’s a drawing or print showcasing furniture designs. Editor: Yes, it definitely feels very much like an architect's sketch or perhaps an interior design mockup. The delicate colours create quite a calming mood, even though the designs themselves are pretty elaborate. I wonder what their purpose was back then. What do you see when you look at this work? Curator: Well, first, imagine those chairs in a room, the air thick with perfumed candle wax and whispered conversations. Each line here isn't just ink; it's a social contract, a statement about wealth and leisure. Laroche, whoever they were, captured a certain...yearning for refined domesticity. It's almost satirical; like a playful exaggeration of the bourgeois dream, don't you think? Editor: I hadn't thought of it that way, but I see what you mean. The flamboyance does hint at something more than just pure function. It seems less about actual furniture and more about ideals of beauty and comfort at the time. Curator: Exactly! It’s not just decorative art, but social commentary masked as such. This single print gives us a fascinating peek into the late 19th century's obsession with domestic display. Do you think we still see echoes of this in design today? Editor: That's a great question! Maybe not to this extreme, but that impulse to signal status through our living spaces definitely hasn’t gone away. This makes you realize design is about much more than just how something looks. Curator: Indeed. That’s why, even from something seemingly as simple as a furniture print, entire worlds unfold if you only look close enough.