Esquisse pour l'escalier des Fêtes de l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris : Les Fleurs ( La Guirlande)

Luc-Olivier Merson's esquisse for the Hôtel de Ville staircase depicting 'Les Fleurs (La Guirlande)' (Flowers / The Garland, 1888) is a preparatory study for one of the ornamental panels of the great decorative program. The garland of flowers as a decorative motif had a long history in French ceiling painting — from Le Brun through the Rococo — and Merson adapts this tradition to the republican civic context while maintaining the lightness and grace associated with festive decoration. Merson handles it with his characteristic lyricism, creating a decorative panel that is both classical in its vocabulary and distinctively personal in its spirit. The work is in the Petit Palais.

The preparatory painting establishes the composition of figures carrying or surrounded by floral garlands, with the flowing movement typical of ceiling decoration. Merson's color sense — light, warm, and decorative — is evident in this esquisse, with the flowers providing rich chromatic accents among the paler figures. The composition has the expansive, airy quality of ceiling painting.