Design for a Frieze of Grapevines

Virgil Solis organized this design for lush, interlaced foliage symmetrically, dividing it with a central urn from which sprout curling grapevines. Four large, drooping flowers and two tiny masks, whose wavy hair and beards echo the scrolling vines, hang from the ends of several of the vines. In antiquity, leafy designs such as this one, known as rinceaux, were popular motifs for ornamenting a variety of forms from furniture to architecture. Such motifs copied from ancient Greek and Roman art fascinated designers in the 1500s.

Although both sides of the drawing have been cut off, leaving only the edge of an urn on the right, Solis probably intended to show the beginning of the same repeating pattern. Other artists and craftsmen could then have copied this continuous decorative frieze to ornament a panel on a variety of objects. The horizontal incised lines above and below the design could have been used to transfer the image onto another surface.