Late in the 17th century, various europeans began experimenting with the idea of a hot air balloon that was large and stabile enough to lift a person into the air for flight over the landscape. In Paris, one of the pioneers was a man by the name of Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. For Italians, his surname became synonymous with the whole concept up to today, although they use the spelling of Mongolfiera to describe hot air balloons, past and present.

The early balloons were often decorated in fanciful ways and had novel methods of trying to steer them, and varied greatly in size.

The designs that provided the basis for these drawings were collected in various old illustrations and frankly I don’t know which were actually flown and which remained on the drawing board. I’ve taken my own liberties with them to make this collection and then arranged them in a few different ways. For the mural designs, several layouts are intended for rooms with ‘normal’ ceilings of 8-9 feet. Another layout portrays them slightly larger in scale and is intended for rooms with ceilings of 10 feet. Ceiling higher than that would be a custom layout but totally doable.

Whimsical in nature, the design works well in childrens rooms, public spaces, bedrooms, accent walls, etc

Available soon through GreenScenes.