unknown - Design for two entablatures - 1770-1790 - T-Shirt

This pen and grey-wash plate shows two classical cornice mouldings drawn in profile, one enriched with rosettes and leaf ornament, the other with acanthus leaves and a row of beads.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built from horizontal bands stacked one above the other. The upper moulding carries a row of round rosettes set between upright leaves, above broad acanthus-type leaves that overhang a projecting fillet. The lower moulding is deeper, with stylised acanthus, curling tendrils and small flowers, ending in a string of beads along its base. Pale grey paper dominates, with charcoal shadows and mid-grey wash defining the projections. The French inscription across the top reads "moulures enrichies de rosettes, feuilles d'ornements, et perles en chapelet," and the plate is numbered 6 in the upper left corner.

Meaning & Symbolism

The rosette, the leaf and the bead were the basic vocabulary from which builders and carvers composed a cornice. Drawn in profile, the mouldings let a mason or joiner read their projection and rhythm directly, without a finished façade to work from. The plate belongs to the French academic tradition of the later eighteenth century, when treatises and pattern sheets codified classical ornament as models of correct proportion. The original was produced between 1770 and 1790 and is held in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum collection.

Why It Suits the Tee

Each moulding here is a horizontal band, and a tee offers exactly that: a wide, open field across the chest that the eye reads in one pass. The stacked profiles sit naturally on a flat front, and the leaves and beads hold their rhythm when seen from a few feet away, as the shirt is seen when worn. This is a reproduction of a working drawing, so the lines that once guided a carver now run across the body as a study in classical order.