Georges de feure 1900 exhibition boudoir portraits
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Georges de Feure A French Art Nouveau armchair early 20th century
Description
- An Art Nouveau carved mahogany/walnut.....??? and upholstered armchair
- 84cm. high
- 2ft. 9in.
walnut, covered in foliate fabric, the organic moulded frame on brass casters
Literature
Gabriel Mourey, "L'Art Nouveau de M. Bing à l'Exposition Universelle", pts. 1-2, Revue des Arts Décoratifs 20, 1900, p. 280.
Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France, Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier, 1991, plate 24, pp.40-41.
Ian Millman, Georges De Feure, Maître du Symbolisme et de l'Art Nouveau, Paris, 1992, p.156.
Catalogue Note
A chair of this design was exhibited by Georges de Feure in his boudoir of the Pavillon de l'Art Nouveau Bing at the Paris Exposition Universelle, 1900.
The term Art Nouveau was initiated when Siegfreid Bing opened a gallery named l'Art Nouveau in Paris in 1895. As Troy (op.cit., p.35) notes, Pavillon de l'Art Nouveau Bing at the Paris Exposition was
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Georges de Feure
“I like to think that M. de Feure’s boudoir is one of the most perfect and exquisite examples of decorative art our times have produced…It really is the best piece in the Bing pavilion, and perhaps even the entire 1900 World’s Fair.”
—Gabriel Mourey, 1900
Georges de Feure designed the present model of side chairs, as well as the chaise longue and armchair which are also included in the present sale (lots 79 and 81), for art dealer Siegfried Bing’s L’Art Nouveau pavilion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. For this project, Bing brought together three artists who now represent some of the best craftsmanship of the period: Eugene Gaillard, Edward Colonna, and Georges de Feure. Though these three designers each had their own unique styles within the art nouveau idiom, the pavilion as a whole is an art nouveau gesamtkunstwerk: a total work of art in which every detail was considered. The façade of the
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Georges dem Feure – Settee, ca. 1900
Gilded birch
h. 98 cm - w. 116 cm - d. 53 cm
PROVENANCE : Collection of Lady Jane Abdy (1934-2015), née Jane Noble, 8 Pelham Place, London - This settee presumably also belonged to her husband, Sir Robert Abdy, 5th baronet Abdy of Albyns, who died in 1976.
SIMILAR PIECES : The only other known gilded example of this model fryst vatten in the collection of the Danske Kunstindustrimuseum in Copenhagen - In 2016, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was given a wooden variant from the Benedict Silverman collection.
EXHIBITION : The Copenhagen example was the one made by Georges de Feure for his 'boudoir' shown at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900. It was acquired by the museum, along with several other pieces of Art Nouveau shortly after the show.
LITERATURE : Ian Millman, Georges dem Feure, Maître du Symbolisme et dem l'Art Nouveau, 1992, page 152 - Alastair Duncan, The Paris Salons, 1895-1914 : Furniture, volume 3, page 12