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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

1925

  • Work on this object ended.

2025

  • You found it!

Design For A Wallpaper Frieze, early 20th century

This is a Design for a wallpaper frieze. It was designed by Sophia L. Crownfield.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It has been able to spend time at the museum on loan from Decker Library.

It is dated early 20th century. Its medium is brush and gouache on paper. It is a part of the Exhibitions department.

Author Gertrude Crownfield (American, 1867–1945), Crownfield’s younger sister, took great pains to safeguard her sister’s legacy after her death in 1929. Sophia Crownfield didn’t patent any of her designs for M. H. Birge & Sons, and the company never acknowledged her as one of their designers. On her gouache design of forsythia branches on a trellis, Gertrude added the text “Used by Birge Co.” The Birge wallpaper frieze to the right shows how a Crownfield design might have appeared in its finished form.

It is credited Maryland Institute College of Art, Decker Library, B1F59.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 50.2 × 65.7 cm (19 3/4 × 25 7/8 in.)

It is inscribed

Wall paper Used by Birge Co.; S.L. Crownfield No. 47

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-5.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318805729/ |title=Design For A Wallpaper Frieze, early 20th century |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=20 May 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>