Egg and Dart Border

This narrow border was hung with a plain ground paper in the 1768 Jeremiah Lee Mansion in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The “egg and dart” form was taken directly from classical sources, where it is found decorating a variety of ancient structures. The British Neo-Palladian style of the early-18th century adopted the Egg and Dart as part of its standard vocabulary of architectural ornamentation.
Narrow borders such as these were typically placed on all margins of sidewall paper installations, used to wrap door and window architraves, and to outline the vertical and horizontal margins of wall surfaces.