The high level of ornamental detail and the conspicuously novel elements of stove and fountain suggest that this drawing may have been among those exhibition-drawings that de Wailly sent to the Paris Salon from 1771 onwards, the year he was controversially admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Every element is present – water and fire, and also air, represented by the incense burners above the frieze, and earth, depicted in the small Bacchanalian reliefs. All the viewer’s senses are thus powerfully addressed.
Charles de Wailly
The high level of ornamental detail and the conspicuously novel elements of stove and fountain suggest that this drawing may have been among those exhibition-drawings that de Wailly sent to the Paris Salon from 1771 onwards, the year he was controversially admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Every element is present – water and fire, and also air, represented by the incense burners above the frieze, and earth, depicted in the small Bacchanalian reliefs. All the viewer’s senses are thus powerfully addressed.
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Category
drawing histories commentaries, rants & reflections
Period
c18th
Architect
Charles de Wailly
Medium
drawing
Tags
presentation domestic interior section