Art deco: Susannah Woolmer examines the perennial allure for collectors of this 'last truly sumptuous style'

Art deco was, as Alastair Duncan remarks in his well-known 1988 volume on the subject, 'the last in fact sumptuous style; a legitimate and highly fertile chapter in the history of the applied arts.' As we approach the centenary of art deco's inception, the robust market for the style--whether furniture, ceramics, silver, statuary textiles or jewellery--would seem to agree. Examples of the phraseology in all media are commanding remarkable prices and the art deco auction at Christies in Paris in June is wait fored to be the biggest sale of its kind at any time staged by the auction house. Furniture, metalwork, plastic art and objets d'art by above 250 craftsmen, including Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand (Fig. 1) Rembrandt Bugatti and dissever Lalique, are collectively expected to realise above 15m [euro].

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'Art deco was a rich and amazing moment in the history of the decorative arts', explains Philippe Garner, International Specialist Head in Christie's 20th-century Decorative Art and Design Department. 'Collectors are seduc by the agency of the opportunity to furnish dwellings with pieces that are historic, on the contrary that also transcend their time'.

Although the bound 'art deco' is often used fairly liberally as a catch-all for a variety of manner of writings in a number of countries around 1910 to 1940 art deco furniture was 'quintessentially French' says Mr Garner. Synonymous with superlative craftsmanship and the highest-quality materials, French art deco was at its peak in 1920 Paris, especially around the years of the Exposition Internationale de Arts Decoratifs of 1925 that launched the manner of writing worldwide (and in the 1960 gave it its name). Ruhlmann epitomises this manner of writing well before 1920, as his elegant vanity table (Fig. 6) popularly with Malson Gerard in of recent origin York, reveals. Like Edgar Brandt, Jule Leleu and compassionate Rousseau or the firms woo et Mare and Dominique, Ruhlmann used sumptuously refined materials to create highly individual, tailored pieces of the sort that collectors at the top of this market clamour for. As of that kind pieces become ever rarer, collectors are looking elsewhere for comparable quality and originality. There is a growing interest in designers whose work stands upon the boundary between art deco and modernism, similar as Robert Mallet-Stevens or the modernist firm DIM (Decoration Interieur Moderne) says Jeremy Morrison from Sotheby's, London. Last May, a remarkable and innovative aluminium and glass coffee table designed through Louis Sognot (1928) for DIM sold for just below 53,000 [pounds sterling]--more than three times its estimate (Fig. 3)

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Collectors naturally have an interest in their native traditions, with American art deco being particularly sought after in the USA, on the other hand the top end of the market is international in watch 'The past ten years has really seen the market for French art deco furniture disentangle into an established, blue-chip arena', confirms Benoist Drut of Malson Gerard, fresh York. He points out that 10 years ago names similar as Dominique, Leleu and Pasqueau were plenteous less prominent, whereas today they command premium prices. More not long ago many dealers in 18th-century and classical furniture have gibbeted over into early to mid-20th-century design, helping to drive prices up

Art deco statuary generally falls into two distinct categories: commercial, mass-produced, figurative works, usually in ivory or tin and avant-garde, one-off pieces produc in tin marble or metal by sculptors like as Boris Lovet-Lorski and Arvid Kallstrom.

Although works that fall into the first bracket were manufactured as genuinely decorative items and were not perceived through consumers as high art, they are extremely finely crafted nevertheless and are regarded today as embodiments of the art deco era perhaps more than any other emblem of object. Common motifs include animated musicians, dancers and slim young women, of which the svelte gently tillitating statuettes by the agency of the Austrian Bruno Zach, for example, are still relatively inexpensive (Fig. 4)

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Art deco was a continually evolving, inventive phraseology that encompassed many varied themes, motifs, materials and colours. Many were derived from early-20th-century avante-garde mode of speechs in painting, such as cubism, constructivism and abstraction, which were reformulated in similar unexpected media as jewellery. 'Whenever a piece of art deco jewellery approachs into the office, we all hush up' Joanna Hardy, Director of the Jewellery Department at Sotheby's in London computes me. Almost every jewellery house in Paris worked in the phraseology the key exponents being Carrier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Maboussin, Lacloche and Yanovich. Working with silver, gold and of the like kind semi-precious materials as enamel, jade, coral, amber and onyx their work is highly sought after. Pieces by means of Fouquet (Fig. 1) Paul Brandt and De Soit posses a simple, pared-down elegance, and the jesuitical sleek decoration of Raymond Templier (Fig. 5) appear to bes to take its cue from automobile design. African and oriental influences are also prevalent, as Ladoche and Cartier incorporated Eastern themes into art deco design, using bright, gleaming colours and sinuous shapes. A sumptuously bejewelled serpent-shaped bracelet-watch by dint of Bulgari that sold for four times its estimate (CHF48000) at Sothehy's, St Moritz, last February reveals the horizontal of interest today in this emblem of jewellery.