Jean Royère - Design New York Tuesday, December 17, 2019 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Galerie Neo Senso, Paris
    Acquired from the above by the present owner, circa 1990

  • Literature

    "Pour grouper la famille: Le Foyer d'aujourd'hui," Le Décor d'aujourd'hui, no. 86, June 1954, p. 187
    René Chavance, "Le Salon des Arts Ménagers," Mobilier et Décoration, April 1954, p. 102
    Christine Grange-Bary, "Un Dialogue Inspiré," Maison & Jardin, no. 406, September 1994, pp. 52, 54
    Jean Royère, décorateur à Paris, exh. cat., Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1999, pp. 70, 164
    Galerie Jacques Lacoste and Galerie Patrick Seguin, Jean Royère, Volume 1 and 2, Paris, 2012, throughout
    Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Jean Royère, Paris, 2017, p. 202

  • Catalogue Essay

    Jean Royère featured his Persane floor lamp in the 1954 Salon des arts ménagers as part of a bedroom setting alongside an Œuf chair in fuzzy gray and red upholstery and a Flaque coffee table in black straw marquetry with a constellation of golden straw stars. Against a large light green curtain in the background, the long graceful arms of the Persane stood “gushing like meteors to carry off the light,” in the words of René Chavance, who reviewed the Salon for the April 1954 issue of Mobilier et Décoration.

    In the same article Chavance praised Royère for having a refined taste that “blends…with a spiritually fanciful invention.” One of the key characteristics of this fanciful inventiveness was Royère’s use of shaped metal rods, which he explored throughout his lighting repertoire. Sometimes they appear, like in the Persane, as a tidy bundle of branches, while in other instances they undulate across the wall, or, in the case of the Liane, sprawl like an unkempt vine or a hand-drawn line.

  • Artist Biography

    Jean Royère

    French • 1902 - 1981

    Jean Royère took on the mantle of the great artistes décorateurs of 1940s France and ran with it into the second half of the twentieth century. Often perceived as outside of the modernist trajectory ascribed to twentieth-century design, Royère was nonetheless informed by and enormously influential to his peers. Having opened a store in Paris in 1943 before the war had ended, he was one of the first to promote a new way of life through interior decoration, and his lively approach found an international audience early on in his career.

    In addition to commissions in Europe and South America, Royère had a strong business in the Middle East where he famously designed homes for the Shah of Iran, King Farouk of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan. The surrealist humor and artist's thoughtful restraint that he brought to his furniture designs continue to draw admiration to this day.

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A Discerning Vision: Property from an Important Private Collection

Ο9

“Persane” floor lamp

circa 1954
Gilt steel, fabric shades.
72 3/8 in. (183.8 cm) high

Estimate
$60,000 - 80,000 

Sold for $150,000

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Design

New York Auction 17 December 2019