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. Since the early 16th century, the cartouche is a scrolling frame device, derived originally from Italian cartuccia. Such cartouches are characteristically stretched, pierced and scrolling.

Cartouche on a Neo-Baroque house from Bucharest, Romania

Another cartouche figures prominently in the 16th-century title page of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, framing a minor vignette with a pierced and scrolling papery cartouche.

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

Engraved Rococo tradecard of Percy Webster, clockmaker, London, mid-18th century engraving, c. 1760

Gallery

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  Roman rectangular cartouche on the frieze of the entrance of Horrea Epagathiana et Epaphroditiana, Ostia, Rome, 145-150 AD

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  Roman rectangular cartouche-shaped tablets from the sanctuary of Isis and Magna Mater in Mainz

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  Brâncovenesc cartouche on a damaged stone in the courtyard of Antim Monastery, Bucharest, Romania

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  Two Renaissance cartouches, a big one with Alexander the Great and a smaller one with an inscription, 1574-1637, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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  Renaissance cartouche in a pediment of the west facade of the Cour Carrée of the Louvre Palace, Paris, designed by Pierre Lescot, 16th century

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  Baroque cartouche, with festoons, cornucopias and mascaron, 1645, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Baroque cartouche, mostly gilded, on the Maison du Moulin à vent, Bruxelles, Belgium

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  Design of a Baroque cartouche, by Stefano della Bella, 1647, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

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  Etching of a complex Baroque cartouche, by Bernard Turreau, 1716, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Baroque Frontispiece for Figures françoises et comiques by Robert Hecquet, 18th century, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Etchings of multiple Baroque cartouche designs, unknown date, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City

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  Rococo cartouche from the Second Livre de Cartouches, circa 1710-1772, Rijksmuseum

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  Rococo cartouche in the Chambre de la reine of the Palace of Versailles (Versailles, France)

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  Louis XVI style cartouche with festoons, based on a Greco-Roman came, circa 1770, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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  Renaissance Revival cartouche on Rue des Archives in Paris

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  Rococo Revival stucco with cartouches in the corners, on a ceiling of the Cantacuzino Palace, Bucharest

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  Romanian Revival cartouche above a window of house no. 60 on Bulevardul Dacia, Bucharest

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  19th century Eclectic Classicist cartouche with a mascaron, above the entrance door of the Académie d'Agriculture de France in Paris

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  19th century Eclectic Classicist cartouche with a caduceus, on the roof of the Crédit Lyonnais headquarters, Paris

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  19th century Eclectic Classicist rectangular cartouche of the Printemps Haussmann, Paris

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  19th century Eclectic Classicist cartouches in and under a pediment of Hala Traian, Bucharest. The rectangular one is a revival of Ancient Roman ones, that had the exact same shape

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  Beaux-Arts cartouche of the Pont Alexandre III, Paris

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  Three designs of Art Nouveau cartouches

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  Complex Art Deco cartouche in the New York State Museum, Albany, New York

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  Stalinist cartouche of the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw, Poland

See also

• Tondo (art): round (circular)
• Medallion (architecture): round or oval
• Architectural sculpture
• Cartouche (cartography)
• Cartouche
• Resist: a technique in ceramics to highlight cartouches, etc.
• Console (heraldry)