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Design

The Enduring Allure of Trompe L’Oeil

January 2, 2020

From the ancient Greeks and Renaissance masters to recent tricksters such as Fornasetti and Banksy, trompe l’oeil has long been a playfully powerful visual idiom. It’s the perfect crossroads where decoration meets fine art—and we think it’s time for its comeback.

Schumacher’s Trompe L’Oeil Collection embraces the tradition’s more lighthearted, gestural side. Here, take a tour through our favorite trompe l’oeil moments.

A vintage Hermès dress in a Life magazine shoot from 1952.

Handpainted wall paneling in a Manhattan bedroom by designer John Barman.

For her much-loved and recently shuttered shop, Hollyhock, designer Suzanne Rheinstein commissioned a vignette full of trompe l’oeil touches by painter Paulin Paris.

A detail of Christian Bérard’s iconic 1939 design for the Institut Guerlain in Paris.

Diana wallpaper by Charlap Hyman & Herrero for Schumacher, fschumacher.com.

The Trompe L’Oeil Georgette gown from Gucci’s 2018 cruise collection.

Print Collector/Getty Images

A dining room painted in 1933 by English artist John Armstrong.

Drapery wallpaper by Paul Poiret for Schumacher, fschumacher.com.

Frescoes as fanciful architectural riff, by poet and artist Jean Cocteau at Villa Santo Sospir in the South of France, c. 1950.

In a powder room by the Wiseman Group, the chest, mirror and walls are all embellished with painterly trompe-l’oeil strokes.


PRODUCED BY TORI MELLOTT AND HUDSON MOORE

SEE THE ENTIRE TROMPE L’OEIL COLLECTION HERE >


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“One Hundred Rooms to Know and Love”
by Schumacher

The creative team at Schumacher has compiled 100 to-die-for rooms by some of today’s most brilliant designers into a slender and attractive cloth-bound volume.

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