This drawing of St. Nicholas of Bari, the model for Santa Claus,[1] was done by the artist Jean-Robert Ango (b. unknown, d. 1773) after the statue of the saint on the colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Ango, originally from France, lived and worked in Rome from 1759 to 1772. During this time he...

The interior decoration depicted in this drawing is extremely fashionable for an eighteenth-century home. This design exhibits the quintessential light and airy Rococo features of arabesques, s- and c- scrolls, vegetal motifs and swags, all with the appearance of symmetry. The layout of the boiserie, or wall paneling, aids in the creation of symmetry within the...

Recognized for an Art Nouveau style all his own, French architect Hector Guimard (1867-1942) designed over a hundred buildings during a prolific fifteen-year span: 1898-1913. He is perhaps best known for having devised the iconic Paris Metro entrance in 1907, a wide-spread scheme employing standardized components that recreate natural forms through the structural and sculptural...

There is a story that an orca came into the harbor at Ostia, Rome’s ancient port, during the reign of Emperor Claudius, right when Claudius was reconstructing the harbor. The orca, or killer whale, was attracted by a local shipwreck, and had been feeding in the harbor for some days when it became trapped by...

The stylistic revolution engineered by the architectural partnership of Robert (1728-1792) and James Adam (1732-1794) transformed British and Irish domestic interiors from the late 1750s to the close of the eighteenth century. Opposed to the architectonic Palladian classicism fashionable in early Georgian Britain, the Adam classical style was characterized by an eclectic and inventive use...

While this drawing is the sole example in the Cooper Hewitt’s collection of Giovanni Piancastelli’s work as an artist, his impact on the museum as a collector is astronomically greater: over 12,200 of Cooper Hewitt’s drawings and prints came directly or indirectly from his personal collection. Born in a town near Ravenna, Italy in 1845,...

Architect Rafael Viñoly made hand sketches as well as beautiful watercolors for his projects. For the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia (1998–2001), Viñoly was tasked with providing a cultural complex: a hall for the Philadelphia Orchestra and a second performance space for multiple types of theatrical productions. The center was also to serve...

This charming gothic interior was the private study in the Cottage Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia, of Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Nicholas I. Born Frederica Louise Charlotte Wilhelmina of Prussia, Charlotte, as she was known, was promised in a political alliance to Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich in 1814. They married three years later and by 1825...

The architect Michael Graves, who died last week at the age of 80, was passionate and insistent about the importance of drawing in architectural practice. Over the course of his career, the use of computer-aided design software became ubiquitous among generations of architects, but Graves remained steadfast in his belief that drawing by hand was...