Lunette, from the Scoville Building, Chicago, Illinois
- Designer
- Louis Sullivan, American, 1856–1924
- Date
- 1884–85
- Material
- Terra cotta
- made in
- Chicago, Illinois, United States, North and Central America
- Classification
- Architectural elements, ceramics
- Collection
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Current Location
- On View, Concourse
- Dimensions
- assembled: 26 1/2 x 53 3/8 x 9 1/2 in. (67.3 x 135.6 x 24.1 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of the General Services Administration
- Rights
- Public Domain
- Object Number
- 44:1975
NOTES
The scrolling motifs and sprouting leaves on this lunette suggest natural forms that have been simplified and abstracted. The high relief of these designs is quite different from Louis Sullivan’s later concept of ornament as low-relief motifs that merge and mingle with the surface. This ornament is reminiscent of designs by the English architect Owen Jones and the Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, with whom Sullivan worked briefly in 1873. This arched lunette decorated the top story windows of the Scoville Building, a Chicago factory designed by Sullivan and his partner, Dankmar Adler.
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