Arabesque Designs

Plates (most) designed by Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin for a posthumous publication: 'Nouvelle Collection d'Arabesques, Propres à la Décoration des Appartemens' 1810. (New collection of arabesques, suitable for decorating apartments. [book]

The arabesque is a type of curvilinear decoration in painting, prints and metalwork etc, with intricate intertwining leaf, flower, animal, or geometrical designs. Rather than having Islamic origins, common usage refers to the flowing abstracted acanthus leaf scroll ornament that began to appear during the Renaissance, inspired by Greek and Roman art works.

[click through to enlarged versions; all illustrations were cropped from the
full page and have been variously spot-cleaned in the background]

Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin (1735 - 1802) was a French interior decoration designer, printmaker and artist who spent many years honing his artistic craft in Rome.

The decorative forms seen above were first produced in the 1780s, inspired by classical sources: the antiquities of Herculaneum, the grotesques of Raphael, and the designs on ancient Roman palaces and villas.

Lavallée-Poussin contributed the great majority of designs to the book, although Guyot's 1810 engravings (hand-coloured) also feature compositions by Voisin, Le Clerc, Berthelot, de Claire, and Janneret.

'Nouvelle Collection d'Arabesques, Propres à la Décoration des Appartemens' (1810) by E de Lavallée-Poussin and Marie Alexandre Lenoir [introduction] has recently been digitised and posted online by the University of Heidelberg. {click anything below 'Inhalt' and then 'Vorschau' for thumbnail pages.

It's hard to tell from the very brief mentions of this volume online, but the Heidelberg copy seems to be missing at least a few designs (by Janneret) that show the arabesques in situ as architectural motifs in apartments.

Arabesque Designs

Plates (most) designed by Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin for a posthumous publication: 'Nouvelle Collection d'Arabesques, Propres à la Décoration des Appartemens' 1810. (New collection of arabesques, suitable for decorating apartments. [book]

The arabesque is a type of curvilinear decoration in painting, prints and metalwork etc, with intricate intertwining leaf, flower, animal, or geometrical designs. Rather than having Islamic origins, common usage refers to the flowing abstracted acanthus leaf scroll ornament that began to appear during the Renaissance, inspired by Greek and Roman art works.

[click through to enlarged versions; all illustrations were cropped from the
full page and have been variously spot-cleaned in the background]

Etienne de Lavallée-Poussin (1735 - 1802) was a French interior decoration designer, printmaker and artist who spent many years honing his artistic craft in Rome.

The decorative forms seen above were first produced in the 1780s, inspired by classical sources: the antiquities of Herculaneum, the grotesques of Raphael, and the designs on ancient Roman palaces and villas.

Lavallée-Poussin contributed the great majority of designs to the book, although Guyot's 1810 engravings (hand-coloured) also feature compositions by Voisin, Le Clerc, Berthelot, de Claire, and Janneret.

'Nouvelle Collection d'Arabesques, Propres à la Décoration des Appartemens' (1810) by E de Lavallée-Poussin and Marie Alexandre Lenoir [introduction] has recently been digitised and posted online by the University of Heidelberg. {click anything below 'Inhalt' and then 'Vorschau' for thumbnail pages.

It's hard to tell from the very brief mentions of this volume online, but the Heidelberg copy seems to be missing at least a few designs (by Janneret) that show the arabesques in situ as architectural motifs in apartments.

The Kingdoms of Science

Octope de cuvier, Argonaute argo, Seche commune, Calamar de brongniart, Nautile pompile, Spirule australe




Asterie vulgaire, Crinoide lys-de-mer, Ourisin comestible, Spatangue velu, Holothurie comestible, Porpite géante




Belemnite, Conilite, Ammonite, Orbiculine, Scaphite, Baculite, Hamite, Amplexe, Turrilite

Actinia viridis (Actinie verte)

Callianase souterraine, Crangon vulgaire, Squille queue-rude, Anilocre du cap, Aega entaillee, Alepidure prolonge, Pandare bicolore

Centriscus scolopax + Centriscus scutatus

Callorhynque (Callorhynchus antarticus)
+ Squale (Squalus centrina)

1 Aleyrode de l'eclaire 2 Cochenille du nopal 3 Puceron du rosier 4 Kermes du pecher 5 Pyslle du jonc




Arctia matronula (Bombice matrone) Arctia casa. (Bombice herisson) Arctia purpurea (Bombice mouchete)




Casque bezoar (Cassis glauca), Harpe ventrue (Harpa ventricosa), Buccin ecaille (Buccinium testudineum)




Civette a bandeau (Viverra fasciata), Paradoxure type (Paradoxurus typus), Ichneumie albescente (Ichneumia albescens)

Equus hemions - Le Dziggetai

Ardea Pavonina (Grue couronnee)
+ Psophia crepitans (Agami trompette)

Brugmansia bicolor

Tropaeolum tuberosum (Capucine tubereuse)

Agaric oronge, Tremelle oreille de judas, Phallus orange, Lycoperdon gigantesque coupe, Pezize bleue, Clathre frise, Lycoperdon cisele, Truffe comestible


[All these illustrations are cropped from the full page and are of varying size; they have all been fairly extensively background cleaned; click through for larger versions]


These natural history illustrations come from a mid-19th century 10-volume series from the Belgian naturalist, Pierre Auguste Joseph Drapiez (1778–1856). You might be forgiven for guessing that the outlandish semi-caricatures of fish and contrived, taxidermic qualities of the mammals were from a century earlier. And you would be right, in fact .. mostly.

Drapiez's 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' is ostensibly an homage to the evolving scientific literature of the Enlightenment and the author was generous enough to underline the point in the title page by saying that his classical dictionary summarised the works of "Buffon, Daubenton, Lacépède, Cuvier, de Jussieu., Etc., Etc". So, while the series from Drapiez couldn't really be considered ground breaking in any material sense, it provided a useful overview of the history of a century's worth of scientific publishing.

Drapiez was something of a generalist in terms of his scientific interests and he doesn't attract a great deal of attention in the larger history of science or even in Belgian science, for that matter. He published a few works on geology and entomology, with a collaboration on a physical sciences series early in his professional career.

• The images above were selected from the first two volumes of 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' [1853] by PAJ Drapiez, hosted by Villanova University Digital Library. {Their main Digital Library is a good timesink too, with a particularly strong Irish collection, among others}.
• All but one of the volumes of 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' can be accessed from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. It's worth a skim: the illustrations ('text' in the sidebar index) are all - or at least all that I saw - fairly stylised, colourful and/or amusing.
• Wikipedia on Drapiez.

The Kingdoms of Science

Octope de cuvier, Argonaute argo, Seche commune, Calamar de brongniart, Nautile pompile, Spirule australe




Asterie vulgaire, Crinoide lys-de-mer, Ourisin comestible, Spatangue velu, Holothurie comestible, Porpite géante




Belemnite, Conilite, Ammonite, Orbiculine, Scaphite, Baculite, Hamite, Amplexe, Turrilite

Actinia viridis (Actinie verte)

Callianase souterraine, Crangon vulgaire, Squille queue-rude, Anilocre du cap, Aega entaillee, Alepidure prolonge, Pandare bicolore

Centriscus scolopax + Centriscus scutatus

Callorhynque (Callorhynchus antarticus)
+ Squale (Squalus centrina)

1 Aleyrode de l'eclaire 2 Cochenille du nopal 3 Puceron du rosier 4 Kermes du pecher 5 Pyslle du jonc




Arctia matronula (Bombice matrone) Arctia casa. (Bombice herisson) Arctia purpurea (Bombice mouchete)




Casque bezoar (Cassis glauca), Harpe ventrue (Harpa ventricosa), Buccin ecaille (Buccinium testudineum)




Civette a bandeau (Viverra fasciata), Paradoxure type (Paradoxurus typus), Ichneumie albescente (Ichneumia albescens)

Equus hemions - Le Dziggetai

Ardea Pavonina (Grue couronnee)
+ Psophia crepitans (Agami trompette)

Brugmansia bicolor

Tropaeolum tuberosum (Capucine tubereuse)

Agaric oronge, Tremelle oreille de judas, Phallus orange, Lycoperdon gigantesque coupe, Pezize bleue, Clathre frise, Lycoperdon cisele, Truffe comestible


[All these illustrations are cropped from the full page and are of varying size; they have all been fairly extensively background cleaned; click through for larger versions]


These natural history illustrations come from a mid-19th century 10-volume series from the Belgian naturalist, Pierre Auguste Joseph Drapiez (1778–1856). You might be forgiven for guessing that the outlandish semi-caricatures of fish and contrived, taxidermic qualities of the mammals were from a century earlier. And you would be right, in fact .. mostly.

Drapiez's 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' is ostensibly an homage to the evolving scientific literature of the Enlightenment and the author was generous enough to underline the point in the title page by saying that his classical dictionary summarised the works of "Buffon, Daubenton, Lacépède, Cuvier, de Jussieu., Etc., Etc". So, while the series from Drapiez couldn't really be considered ground breaking in any material sense, it provided a useful overview of the history of a century's worth of scientific publishing.

Drapiez was something of a generalist in terms of his scientific interests and he doesn't attract a great deal of attention in the larger history of science or even in Belgian science, for that matter. He published a few works on geology and entomology, with a collaboration on a physical sciences series early in his professional career.

• The images above were selected from the first two volumes of 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' [1853] by PAJ Drapiez, hosted by Villanova University Digital Library. {Their main Digital Library is a good timesink too, with a particularly strong Irish collection, among others}.
• All but one of the volumes of 'Dictionnaire Classique Des Sciences Naturelles' can be accessed from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. It's worth a skim: the illustrations ('text' in the sidebar index) are all - or at least all that I saw - fairly stylised, colourful and/or amusing.
• Wikipedia on Drapiez.