Mise-en-Carte (Point-Paper)
Nicholas Guerin et Cie (Lyon, France)
1760s
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor with traces of graphite over an etching in black ink on cream laid paper
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 43.5 × 54.1 cm (17 3/16 × 21 5/16 in.); Sheet: 44.8 × 56.4 cm (17 11/16 × 22 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Lyon
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Neil P. Frankel, Nina Hancock, Robert D. Kleinschmidt; Royalties from F. Schumacher and Company
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Designs for silk weaving were drawn by professional artists who had often trained in flower painting, a skill that could be deployed for the decoration of objects besides textiles. The designs were painted on the point paper grid, which then served as a guide to the person mounting the threads on the loom. The artists’ names do not appear on these technical drawings; only the companies that commissioned the designs and wove the silk are identified.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
