Louis Schaettle, born Chicago, IL - Mining (study for lunette, Old Senate Office Building) - ca. 1916 - T-Shirt

This is a presentation study by Louis Schaettle, painted around 1916, showing two kneeling miners framing a bronze-toned portrait medallion beneath a crowned ornament.

Visual Elements & Composition

The half-circle lunette form sets the whole scene in a arch, with a circular medallion at its centre. The palette runs on cream, teal and gold, with rose and bronze green in the border and medallion. A blue lattice ground fills the background, and a patterned border in pink, ochre and green frames the edges. The lettering DIEGO VELASQUEZ circles the medallion rim, and the word MINING sits on a plaque below it, so the text anchors the composition at top and bottom.

Meaning & Symbolism

The classical medallion, with its named portrait and wreath of golden leaves, is a traditional device for honouring a theme through a respected figure. Here it is paired with two labourers: a kneeling worker in a red cap works with a long tool on the left, and a shirtless worker beside a long-handled hammer on the right. Both are shown at full strain, presenting mining as physical toil. The garland of oranges and pink ribbons below suggests the abundance that such labour was expected to yield. Designed as a study for a lunette in the Old Senate Office Building, the scene treats extraction and craft as a civic subject equal in dignity to the allegorical figures around it.

Art Without Walls: The Print Behind the Piece

A tee suits this artwork because the lunette is built to be read as a whole: the arch, the medallion and the figures sit in a clear, symmetrical layout that carries well across a chest. The worker figures and the central medallion give the eye a natural focal point, while the lattice and border add the decorative texture of the original study. Worn on the body, the design keeps its civic seriousness and its early twentieth-century character.