Design for Portion of Stairway, Château-sur-Mer, Newport, Rhode Island

Charles Salagnad's architectural rendering depicts a grand interior wall treatment for the Newport mansion, featuring two tall blank panels—likely for mirrors or windows—flanked by decorative painted sections. The upper registers showcase pastoral scenes with figures in period dress set among trees and classical structures, rendered in soft watercolor tones. Below runs a band of richly modeled wooden paneling with recessed rectangular forms. This design reflects the Gilded Age taste for European-inspired grandeur, combining restrained neoclassical geometry with naturalistic narrative scenes to create an impression of cultivated leisure and refinement suitable to the wealthy families commissioning such work.