Cartouche (design)

A cartouche (also cartouch) is an oval or oblong design with a slightly convex surface, typically edged with ornamental scrollwork. It is used to hold a painted or low relief design. [cite book
first=Francis D.K.
last= Ching
year= 1995
title= A Visual Dictionary of Architecture
edition=
publisher=John Wiley and Sons
location=New York
pages= p. 183
id= ISBN 0-471-82451-3]

In Early Modern design, since the early 16th century, is a scrolling frame device, derived originally from Italian _it. "cartoccia". Such cartouches are characteristically stretched, pierced and scrolling ("illustration, left"). Another cartouche figures prominently in the title page of Giorgio Vasari's "Lives," framing a minor vignette with a device of pierced and scrolling papery _it. "cartoccia" (see illustration).

The engraved trade card of the London clockmaker Percy Webster ("illustration, right") shows a vignette of the shop in a scrolling cartouche frame of Rococo design that is composed entirely of scrolling devices.

See also

* Scrollwork

Footnotes