Beginning in 1928, Paul Cocteau, a stockbroker and older brother to artist Jean Cocteau, embarked on an ambitious project along with his wife Marcelle, engaging the designer Marcel Coard to conceive the entire interior decorative scheme for their massive country estate in Champgault, France. The residence included two master bedrooms, six guest bedrooms, two dining rooms, and various living rooms and boudoirs, for which Coard designed original pieces of furniture and lighting, chose the fabrics and wall treatments, and incorporated sculptures by artists such as Joseph Csaky.
A partially-colorized image of Marcelle Cocteau’s bedroom.
The lamp on offer in this sale originated in Marcelle Cocteau’s bedroom, one of the first rooms to be completed and the most sumptuous room in the house. For this bedroom Coard orchestrated a color scheme of brilliant blue and rich brown Macassar ebony set off by touches of white. For the lamp, Coard selected mirrored clear and blue glass mosaic tiles set into a simple yet striking geometric pattern. In a period image the lamp can just be made out in the reflection of the dressing table. It appears to be positioned across the room in front of a window, where it would have caught and reflected light throughout the space.
The exterior of Marcelle and Paul Cocteau’s residence in Champgault, France.
Continuing the color scheme, the cubist-form dressing table featured Macassar ebony veneer and was fitted with lapis lazuli plaques. Coard similarly selected Macassar ebony and lapis details for the dresser, incorporating a central vertical band of luminous mother-of-pearl. The nightstands also incorporated Macassar ebony and lapis, while the custom wool carpets further echoed the overall effect, with a perimeter of blue ombré bands around a central cream-colored rectangle.
“Shape is not everything in a piece of furniture, even less is a decorative ensemble. Material and color play an eminent role. And the superiority of Coard is to have perfectly understood that these two elements could redeem the defect that is almost fatally inherent in great simplicity: coldness.”
—Jean Gallotti , Art et Décoration, 1932
Coard’s penchant for combining bold color with avant-garde furniture designs set him apart from his contemporaries. Whereas cabinetmakers such as Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann or Sue et Mare sought to modernize historical styles, Coard preferred original modernist shapes, while still often incorporating luxurious materials. And while Jean-Michel Frank favored an aesthetic of “poor luxury” and might have doubled down on the austere cubic form of the present lamp, cladding it in white parchment or earthy mica, Coard’s exuberant surface treatment brings the simple, modernist shape of the lamp to life. As Jean Gallotti wrote in Art et Décoration in 1932, “Shape is not everything in a piece of furniture, even less is a decorative ensemble. Material and color play an eminent role. And the superiority of Coard is to have perfectly understood that these two elements could redeem the defect that is almost fatally inherent in great simplicity: coldness.”
Provenance
Marcelle and Paul Cocteau, Champgault, commissioned directly from the designer Sotheby's, London, "20th Century Decorative Arts & Design," November 4, 1999, lot 419 Galerie du Passage, Paris Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
Jean Gallotti, "Marcel Coard," Art et Décoration, September 1932, illustrated p. 285 Amélie Marcilhac, Marcel Coard Décorateur, Paris, 2012, illustrated pp. 28, 126, 130
Catalogue Essay
Phillips would like to thank Dominique Marny, grandaughter of Marcelle and Paul Cocteau and member of the Comité Jean Cocteau, for her assistance cataloging the present lot.”
Like many other furniture designers of the Art Deco period, Marcel Coard began his career catering to the traditional tastes of his customers, only making unique and creative pieces for certain clients. His furniture design transcended the historicism and modernism that dominated the Art Deco style, and ultimately reflects the concepts and aesthetics of the early twentieth-century avant-garde as much as it does a particular decorating style.
Coard is most famous for the furniture he designed for the great couturier and patron of the arts Jacques Doucet. Widely published, Doucet's interior has come to define modern collecting practices and in particular was a formative inspiration for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Coard’s work was re-discovered in the historic 1972 auction of Doucet's collection, which achieved previously unrealized results in the still nascent Art Deco market.