Attributed to JEAN BERAIN, the Elder “A Pair of Ceiling Designs”
$8,000
(French 1640-1711)
A Pair of Ceiling Designs
Watercolor and ink on paper, 7 x 9 ½ inches + frame
Jean Berain the Elder was a designer, painter, draughtsman, engraver of ornament, and the artistic force in the Royal office of the lesser “pleasures of the King” where all the designs originated for court spectacle, from fêtes to funerals, as well as many designs for furnishings.
The “Berainesque” style of light arabesques and playful grotesques was highly influential, an essential element in Regency style that led to the French Rocaille and European Rococo, notably in the Low Countries, Germany, and London.
Long after his death the connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette wrote of him, “Nothing was done, in whatever genre that it might have been, unless it were in his manner, or where he had given designs for it.”