The intricacy, elegance, and charm of Victorian decorative art continue to attract a broad spectrum of contemporary artists, designers, and craftspeople. Now they can draw on this treasury of excellent royalty-free Victorian designs to add nineteenth-century ambiance to almost any project.
The author has selected over 160 designs from a variety of periodicals, books, and catalogs from England, France, Germany, and America, including the Album de l'ornemaniste, L'Art pour toous, Foremschatz, Decorative Vorbilder, The Studio, Art-Journal, and Decoration. The motifs reproduced were taken from or intended for fabric, carpets, mosaics, lace, tapestries, metalwork, manuscripts, ceramics, stained glass, architectural details, paintings, and much else.
Drawing on native European design tradition as well as the exoticism of the East, the patterns in this volume are predominantly florals and foliates, although there is also abundant abstract figuration, especially from Islamic sources. Textile, package, and graphic designers — any artist or craftsperson in search of authentic Victorian decorative design — will find these designs inspirational and exceptionally useful.