OLD MASTER DRAWINGS
Sometimes as I design, I reach far back into history – to the Renaissance, one of my favorite periods. I love browsing Old Master drawing sales at New York auction galleries. They are often estimated at very reasonable prices and it’s always interesting to learn a drawing’s provenance.
There is a warmth and serenity to a room adorned with these beautiful drawings, with their translucent brown wash technique, or red chalk on creamy white paper, or pen and ink on gray-blue paper. The Annunciation, Madonna and Child, The Assumption, The Betrothal … these scenes prompt one to contemplation – and I believe that rooms should tell stories. I have the drawings finished with beautiful mats of hand-painted pale washes of color surrounded by ink lines, a hallmark of European mat decoration. When these drawings are matted and completed with hand-carved, water-gilded frames, I sometimes just prop them on a chair, bedside table, or fireplace mantle.
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