Pompeiian Design for Wall and Doorway 1850 - 1900

Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise rendered this Pompeiian Design for Wall and Doorway on paper, likely with watercolor and ink. But this work is not only about the qualities of those media. It is the design that is the focus. Think of Pompeii, buried in ash by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, and then rediscovered in the 18th century. Suddenly, you had the interior design trends of the Roman Empire available for direct appropriation. This was a world of hand-made architecture, built by both enslaved people and skilled artisans. Lachaise is offering us a version of that aesthetic, flattened into a portable format. Here, craft is a matter of cultural aspiration. A kind of time travel, made possible by the division of labor in design, drafting, and production. Ultimately, the design speaks to the power of images to carry historical meaning, connecting us to a distant world through the language of form and decoration.