Art Nouveau & Art Deco furniture design
Inspired by William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement in England
[Art Nouveau]. Documents sur l’Art Industriel au vingtième siècle.
Paris, La Maison Moderne 1901.
(30 x 20 cm). Various pagination for each section, chiefly illustrated, about 170 pages, several hundred photographs, 9 full-page plates by Felix Valloton representing craftsmen at work. Original wrappers, illustrated by Paul Follot, endpaper by G. Lemmen, text ornaments by Vogler, typography by Eugène Grasset. Covers a bit rubbed and slightly fading and the first leaf shows signs of handling, an unsophisticated repair, while a few preliminaries have some rough spots at the foot, but solid and internally well-preserved and near fine with bright plates.
Extraordinary catalogue of the Maison Moderne, a furniture and decorative art gallery founded in Paris, 1899, by the German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe (1867-1935). The founder was deeply influenced, as witnessed by the typographic design and his statement in the preface, by William Morris:
"La création de la Maison Moderne n’a pas eu d’autre origine que la volonté bien arrêtée de satisfaire un idéal qui avait été celui de William Morris, chez nos voisins d’Outre-Manche, et que, jusqu’en 1898, nul n’avait réussi à réaliser parmi nous [The creation of the Maison Moderne had no other origin than the well-determined desire to satisfy an ideal that had been that of William Morris, among our neighbors across the Channel, and which, until 1898, no one among us had succeeded in realizing]." (Preface)
The catalogue is divided into 9 chapters dealing with all the themes of arts and crafts: Furniture, lighting, sculpture, watchmaking, marquetry, leather goods, ceramics and glassware, goldsmithing and jewelry, lace and silk dyeing.
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Fashionable furnishings for home and office in 1930s Paris
LEVITAN. Catalogue Général.
Paris, Levitan, 1937.
(24.5 x 31.5 cm). Oblong. 68 pp. “annexe au catalogue general” bound-in (smaller format: 22 x 29 cm), followed by the main catalog, 135 pp. Publisher's textured gray card stock covers, stamped in white. Spine, edges, and corners slightly rubbed, some leaves tanning, external leaves showing wear, but a very well-preserved catalog with hundreds of illustrations.
The Levitan firm provided all manner of household and office furniture, fixtures, and bedding from their majestic premises in the 63 Boulevard Magenta, Paris. Offering everything from single duvet covers and end tables to suites of matching furnishings for offices, dining rooms, bedrooms, sitting rooms, bars, and restaurants, the catalog documents the fashionable style of mid-1930s. The items are all priced, thus providing a financial context as well.