The Two-Volume Petitsin Design Journal Set of Books boasts over 500 pages (50 pages in color) of Secrets and Insights of ornamental interior design gleaned from our decades of experience and extensive research of historical Ornamental Design. Any room size can be detailed with ornamental mouldings, and these Journals will show you how, rooms from ballroom to bath are shown in elaborate detail. These Journals have set the Vanguard for Ornamental design since the company's inception in 1914. A working textbook for Today’s designer, features 100’s of individual parts, both as individual elements and combined with other parts to create assemblies for ornamental ceilings and walls. The Petitsin collection of parts is fabricated from a modern flexible resin material here in our Los Angeles workshop, is gently pliable and easy to install with basic carpentry equipment & tools. Each Binder is broken up into multiple categories of design which todays’ designers are searching for; Ceilings, Wall Elevations, Vertical Panels, Doors, Centerpieces (cartouches, shells, florals, bows), Linear Mouldings of all styles (egg & darts, lambs tongues, acanthus leaves, laurel leaves, beads, etc),Scrolls of all sizes, and much more...and this entire catalog of ornament is all displayed in stunning detail and to scale.
The Petitsin Revival Collection, fabricated here in our Los Angeles facility from the same flexible resin material as our Petitsin Collection, contains hundreds of fine linears for application to paint grade millwork, fireplace surrounds, cabinetry doors, doors & furniture. This collection features the “vowels” of ornamental design such as egg & dart, acanthus, lambs tongue, bead & barrel, reed & cross ribbon, laurel leaf as well as ornate scroll linears, fluting, French ribbon, and running ovates. The Revival line features a vast collection of small panel corners and small centerpieces such as shells, cartouches, shields, floral baskets & wreaths suitable for combination with the linears described above for the design of wall panels of all sizes. We chose many of the most admired parts from our historic Composition moulding collection to create the Revival Collection. Throughout the Revival catalog, concepts for design ideas using the linears & centerpieces & corners parts are illustrated.
This book showcases the ornamental material our Company was founded on. Our founder, Joseph Pierce Weaver from Liverpool, UK, brought with him to Los Angeles the unique family compo recipe and his masterful abilities for reverse wood carving. He set up his shop in Downtown Los Angeles in 1914 and initially his business was focused on fabricating ornament for the furniture and elaborate picture framing industry. A third generation gilder by trade, he fabricated the composition ornament, applied it to wood frames, applied gesso and gilded to his client’s taste. Composition Ornament, or "Compo", is a decorative art medium that highly flexible and self-bonding to any interior hard surface. It is an interior decoration that has been all but lost for centuries. Originated in the Early Italian Renaissance, this fine form of relief ornament has been, and is still used today on furniture, cabinetry, millwork, ceilings and walls.
Our company, continuing Joseph Pierce Weaver’s legacy, is one of the few surviving firms to actively fabricate compo ornaments made with our unique family recipe. Over ten Thousand of our pieces all beautifully displayed on full size boards in our showroom in Glendale, CA and available to order from this catalog of over 300 pages -- and all pictured in perfect 1/4 scale to facilitate design. For installation information and also painting techniques, please visit our "Video Gallery" under the "Compo" menu tab.