Design for a Grotto,

ca. 1711

Not intended as a plan for an actual building, this architectural drawing instead functioned as a design for an engraving in the first volume of Decker’s tract Fürstliche Baumeister (Princely building-master), published in 1711. Such treatises encouraged the reader to imagine new possibilities for architecture. In this illustration, Decker employs traditional ecclesiastical forms in a garden structure, demonstrating that motifs typically associated with one context could be adapted for another type of project altogether. Decker’s use of pink wash in a design for a black-and-white engraving indicates the high value he placed on the drawing’s immediate visual appeal to his sophisticated audience.