Michele Cornè was particularly well known for his interior decorations, including murals and paintings created specifically to ornament an architectural scheme. This example was originally intended as an overmantel painting – a picture built into an architectural chimney breast. The BMA has replicated such an installation here. Paintings inset over mantels and doorways were common in Europe for several centuries before artists such as Cornè brought the idea to Federal America. He worked in Salem and Boston, Massachusetts, as well as Newport, Rhode Island.