#CP7pa25_Carnivale Fantasia #2
$6,250.00
22″ x 37″ framed original drawing on white 100lb (270 gsm) archival paper; custom wood frame, warm antique bronze, 30″ x 45″, 2″ double mat (burgundy and pale blue).
Available on backorder
PLEASE NOTE: THIS ARTWORK IS ON DISPLAY AT THE R.W. NORTON MUSEUM OF ART IN SHREVEPORT, LA THROUGH NOVEMBER 30, 2025. IT IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE, BUT CANNOT BE DELIVERED UNTIL EARLY DECEMBER 2025. Read about the exhibit here: https://www.shreveportbossieradvocate.com/food_and_entertainment/new-orleans-in-art-exhibit-opens-at-rw-norton-art-gallery-shreveport-la/article_d16ffd2d-bf8f-4fbb-aa57-18c8e111defa.html?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
This one-of-a-kind framed original colored pencil drawing was created by New Orleans artist Emilie Rhys in June and July 2025 at Scene By Rhys Fine Art, the artist's gallery on Royal Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It is the artist's first foray into depictions of Carnival in New Orleans.
Living here since 2011 has afforded the artist with many opportunities to participate in Carnival season, which in New Orleans begins annually with the tiny Joan of Arc parade on Epiphany (January 6) and ends with the epic parades on Fat Tuesday (variable date each year, due to Easter’s changeability). Many parades march in the streets between those two dates, and she has documented them with camera in hand.
Carnivale Fantasia #2 is the result of years of observation and enjoyment by the artist of this unique city-wide party, one that is truly “by the people, for the people”— particularly in the French Quarter, where she lives and works. The composition is a fantasy because it brings together things we wouldn’t see in real life, notably the lead float of the Krewe of Bacchus, on the right, facing off with the Pegasus on the lead float of the Krewe of Iris, seen at left. The behemoths in this artwork represent all the enormous, oversized floats that roll on St. Charles Avenue and on Canal Street during the season. There is a reference to a third parade, the Krewe of Barkus, in the form of the two dogs at lower right who are festooned with decorations.
Most everything else in this piece references the experience of the less monumental, though no less fun, Carnival in the French Quarter, focusing on the crowds of revelers in which a marching band dances their way through the streets. Masked ladies in somewhat archaic dress cavort as they hold flower garlands aloft. Costumed people revel in their own—and everyone else’s—splendor.
To impart something of the feeling of “being there,” the artist strived in this piece to portray the sense of true joy that she witnesses on the faces of nearly everyone she encounters during her own Carnival meanderings.