Phillips would like to thank Amélie Marcilhac for her assistance cataloguing the present lot.
A Signature Technique
by Amélie Marcilhac
Marcel Coard began his career under the patronage of Jacques Doucet with a macasssar-ebony, mother-of-pearl, and gold leaf-decorated vitrine (now preserved in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris) and for the rest of his life he would continue to be strongly influenced by the desideratum of his first sponsor. After having sought out a boudoir-style interior with the above-mentioned vitrine and a “Canapé Gondole” (see Phillips, London, April 27, 2016, lot 15 for the sale of a similar example), at the end of the teens Jacques Doucet began to commission his artists to create works that were more African and cubist, promoting in particular Pierre Legrain, who was very inspired by l'art primitif.
It was important to create unique works, in materials that had been used only very seldom up until that point. As Jacques Doucet liked to say, “Modern furniture must make use of sources that the old cabinetmakers [those of the eighteenth century] didn’t use.” Thus he commissioned from Marcel Coard his personal desk for his residence on the avenue Saint-James (also in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris), of which the top is entirely covered in python, a material that up until then had not yet appeared in Art Deco furniture. He was one of the only, if not the only, decorators in this period to incorporate python skin into furniture design. He also used this signature technique on his own desk, which he created around 1920-1925 and kept until the end of his life (see Camard, Hôtel des ventes Drouot, Paris, “Vente des héritiers de Marcel Coard,” June 18, 2002, lot 114).
The present drinks cabinet, in unfinished oak with a quadrangular, elevated body clad in python, is one of only six known extant works by Coard that incorporate python, which include the desk for Jacques Doucet; the decorator’s own desk; a table lamp; a lady’s writing desk (also inlaid with mother-of-pearl); a large rectangular mirror and the present cabinet. These last three pieces belonged to the same, single commission bestowed on Coard from around 1925-1927, a commission that denoted the great refinement and avant-garde taste of the patron. The drinks cabinet was conceived as a precious object, with its angular base composed of four legs joined by an X-form stretcher. The cabinet opens to reveal an interior fitted with six sets of drawers, their façades clad in python, and a larger, central drawer surmounting a niche for four crystal decanters and six cut crystal glasses. This drinks cabinet is emblematic of Marcel Coard's œuvre, innovative in its form as well as in its materials, yet at the same time very refined in its conception.