A "Three Dimensional" Blueprint, all painted (watercolored) on heavy card pieces, of an Elegant Art Deco Living Room or Salon, showing the four walls and the floor

A quirky, elaborate and wonderful seven piece watercolored model, or blueprint, of an elegant and sophisticated Art Deco living room, whose decor includes an upright piano, a desk, two tall cabinets, seating with shell-like backs, a round portrait of a dog, a table lamp held up with a blackamoor serving as its column, etc. N.d., circa 1920. This "blueprint" is almost surely American, based on the heavy card used, was made by Devoe, a New York-based paint company with roots in the 18th Century. One might be able to date more exactly the date the boards were made (which isn't the same as when the artwork was done, of course), but from the typology we are confident the boards are from the twenties or thirties). The decor suggests to us the 1920s, but the thirties would be plausible also. We are of the mind the earlier decade is likelier because of the co-mingling of some things that are not Art Deco, such as the sconces over the piano. By the thirties, we think the designer of this room wouldn't have dreamed of using these; but in the early twenties, he probably had no other choice. The sleek surfaces of the furniture, the particular panache of the individual pieces, and the like does show the strong French Art Deco influence, and some of the pieces were probably of French origin. We also tend to think this was done by a New York designer, since such a person would be the most cutting edge.The pieces are of various sizes. Six of the pieces are used to form the four walls, and one, the largest piece, represents a bird's eye view from above of the room. This piece, which is almost rectangular except one of the two shorter sides juts out with a bay that from above resembles a roof line, giving the room six (or to be precise, eight) sides, measures at its greatest length and width, 28.5 by 23 cm. The two side wall pieces are oblong, 14.5 by 23.5 cm. The unbroken short side wall piece is just .5 cm less wide. The opposite end of the room, the three sided wide bay, has a center piece, where a piano is placed, 10.5 wide, and the two wall pieces that sit diagonally, are 7.5 and 8 cm wide (these walls are symmetrical and should have the same width, but this being a "manuscript" model, the artist/designer did not execute everything with the utmost precision. The floor piece facilitates the placement of the walls, and it can be laid down with those walls to anchor their placement from below. There is no built-in contraption such as a easel flap to hold the four walls upright -- one has to improvise with an object to place behind to achieve this, if one so desires. In all likelihood this wasn't a concern of the artist decorator. We think this was indeed made by a decorator as a more elaborate blueprint for this room, both to satisfy himself on the design and to show the client his vision for the finished room than a conventional blueprint can provide. We can not make a definitive representation about how common this type of object, a multi-piece painted recreation of a room, would have been. We have never seen such an object before, and for that matter, decorator artistic renderings of the designs are generally done with less exactitude than was applied to this model. The pieces have some stains and schmutz. The backs, which don't matter, do have some large dampstains. There are spots of some paint loss. Title: A "Three Dimensional" Blueprint, all painted (watercolored) on heavy card pieces, of an Elegant Art Deco Living Room or Salon, showing the four walls and the floor Location Published: American, probably New York, 1920 Binding: NA Book Condition: Very Good Item lbs: 2.00 Item lbs Categories: Interior Design, Manuscripts, Watercolors, Art Deco Seller ID: 20568