The present coffee table is one of Jacques Quinet’s most well-known designs from the height of long and productive career began in the late 1940s. It was during the 1960s that he attracted some of his most prominent commissions. The furniture and lighting from this period were not mass-produced, but obtained through special order. The crisp lines and elegant execution of Quinet’s work reflect his training as an architect and his early employment with a master cabinetmaker. Even as modernism was eclipsed by other movements and styles in the second half of the twentieth century, Quinet continued to emphasise a rigorous simplicity in his designs for furnishings and interiors. The present lot is an example of the austere metalwork that was simultaneously in the tradition of some of his forebears such as Pierre Chareau and anticipatory of the sleek styles of the 1970s.