Getty Museum

Paneled Room

Date

about 1755

Medium

Painted and gilded oak; four oil-on-canvas overdoor paintings; breche d'Alep mantelpiece; modern mirrored glass; gilt-bronze hardware

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

The paneling for this room was made around 1755 for an as-yet-unidentified Parisian *hôtel* (mansion). It is a good example of the decoration of a *grand salon* in a fashionable town house in the mid-1700s. This room would have formed part of a suite of rooms, known in French as an *appartement*, where the doors face each other on opposite walls to create an *enfilade*, a characteristic feature of grand eighteenth-century homes, designed to draw the visitor from one room to the next. Elaborately paneled rooms were not intended for hanging paintings. In this room, only the overdoors are set with painted canvases, which contain scenes of incense burners and garlands of flowers with separate carved frames. Cast trophies of musical instruments decorate the four corners of the plaster cornice, and scenes of female musicians adorn the centers. The ceiling and floor are reproductions of the originals.

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