Ref.11336
Gabriel VIARDOT (1830-1906) - A small Japanese style secretary

Carved and openwork wooden secretary, decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays. Bronze ornaments. Opening with a door, a drawer on the front and a writing flap opening two drawers. Lion claw feet. Stamped "G Viardot " on one of the feet.

Ref.13629
Louis MAJORELLE (attr.to), Tea table with a Vernis Martin decoration, circa 1880-1890

Showing a classical shape for this type of saloon furnishings, the great originality of this table is in its decoration, made out of Vernis Martin. This technic was invented in the 18th century by the Martin brothers, who wanted to imitate the Japanese and Chinese lacquers, at a time when these were really rare in Occident. After a relative disinterest during the first half of the 19th century, the technic went fashionable again, with the advent of the Far East trend and the furniture by Louis Majorelle (1859-1926). Apart from the lacquer, the decorative patterns adorning the two boards are alluding to the Chinese and Japanese repertoire : on the upper board, a bird is taking off holding in its beak an insect in a lake background with reeds and beautiful flowers. The lower board is decorated in the same spirit, with also a lake background in which we can see a flying wader with a tit. Louis Majorelle was born in 1859. At this time, his father was already a ceramicist and a maker for lacquered furniture. His business consisted in adorning furniture in the technic of Vernis Martin and to inspire himself from Far East motifs. The masterpiece by Auguste Majorelle is a grand piano, now owned by the Musée de l’Ecole in Nancy. Made by the Mangeot Company from Nancy, this grand piano was exhibited at the 1878 World’s Fair. Auguste Majorelle died soon after, and his son, Louis, perpetuated his work, creating lacquered, Japanese-inspired furniture, some exhibited at the 1889 World’s Fair.

Ref.14086
Concrete garden furniture attributed to Willy Guhl

Four-pieces living room by Swiss designer Willy Guhl from the 1950s in natural fiber cement. « Willy Guhl was an inventor, an experimenter, a resercher and a visionary. Despite that, he did not get lost in utopia. He reveals himself to be pragmatic almost a genius. » Robert Haussman Willy Guhl was part of these historical designers historiques who have contributed to the international reputation of the Swiss design. He was one of the big representative of Neo-Functionalism. From a carpenter father, he follows a furniture maker formation in the Kunstgewerbeschule of Zurich – School of applied arts of Zurich here he teaches from 1941 -, and becomes the director of the interior architecture department 10 years after. He leads in the late 1940's pionneer reaserches in the plastic furniture field. He develops then a knowledge about moulding technical that we allow him to reveal himself by transposing them on a new material : the Eternit, also called fibercement, which he is one of the first to use in Europe. The Eternit is a kind of cement reinforce by asbestos and with a fiber texture which allows to create audacious pieces with new shapes. It takes the aspect of larges slabs to which it is possible to give a shape as long as they are not dried. Produced in the origin for the industry, it's a cheap material with an important resistance, so perfectly adapted for the fabrication of external furniture.

Ref.14136
Baccarat opaline chandelier