This video was created for LaunchPad, a program of digital interpretive materials that supplement the viewing of works of art on display in the Art Institute of Chicago's galleries.

A stencil is a flat sheet of metal or thick paper into which letters or patterns have been cut. Stenciling, the process in which ink or paint is applied through the perforations and which allows multiple reproductions, became a popular technique in the 19th century. Much of the decoration in Sullivan and Adler's 1893 Stock Exchange Trading Room, now installed at the Art Institute, was made using stenciling.

In this video, a contemporary stenciling artist reproduces a pair of griffins, one of the mythical creatures featured as a detail on the Burges sideboard.