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Lot Essay
Sculpteur animalier, membre de la Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois prend part régulièrement tout au long de sa carrière aux Salons d’Automne et Salons des Artistes Décorateurs. Il est permis de penser que Jacques Doucet, si fervent amateur des diférentes manifestations artistiques et salons de l’époque, découvre le travail de Le Bourgeois au Salon des Artistes Décorateurs de 1913 : un compte rendu du Salon, publié par la revue Art et Décoration, met le travail du sculpteur à l’honneur, illustrant une série de délicats panneaux en bois sculpté qui mettent en scène un univers animalier aux contours épurés sur un fond végétal stylisé. Ce dernier thème semble alors faire son apparition dans l’oeuvre de l’artiste avec l’introduction de motifs tels le sceau de Salomon, la fougère, la prêle et l’arum sauvage, dont on peut deviner les formes stylisées dans le programme décoratif de notre meuble. C’est dans ce même Salon de 1913 que Jacques Doucet rencontre Eileen Gray (1878-1976), qui y prend part pour la première fois. Elle présente son célèbre et énigmatique panneau décoratif Aum Mane Padme Aum, qui attire l’attention du mécène et lui vaudra plusieurs commandes par la suite. On peut tout aussi bien imaginer la commande de ce meuble d’appui par Jacques Doucet pour le boudoir de Madame au 46, avenue du Bois à Paris. Un an auparavant, Doucet découvrait au Salon des Indépendants, le sculpteur russe Léon Indenbaum (1891-1981). Il lui passe commande en 1913 du bas-relief en onyx rose, L'Idylle, achevé en 1914, destiné à la salle à manger de l’avenue du Bois (lot 4). La précieuse photographie d’époque, qui montre le meuble in situ, placé contre un mur, en arrière plan du lit de repos de Pierre Legrain, laisse à penser que la commande passée par Jacques Doucet à Le Bourgeois ne se limite pas à ce seul meuble, mais semble au moins s’étendre à la frise sculptée qui court le long du mur et répond peut être à un programme décoratif plus complet pour cette pièce. Jacques Doucet qui jouit d’un sens aigu du rapport des oeuvres entre elles, sans a priori hiérarchique des catégories, s’applique à les faire dialoguer dans des jeux de correspondances entre formes, matières, couleurs, thèmes, rythmes. L’aboutissement en sera son Studio de Neuilly-sur-Seine, devenu une référence mythique pour tous les collectionneurs et amateurs d’art. Il travaillera plusieurs années à sa mise en place à partir du milieu des années 20, y disposant sa collection ‘moderne’, qu’il complète régulièrement par des commandes spécialement destinées à ce lieu, auprès des plus grands artistes et décorateurs de son temps, et ce jusque peu avant sa mort en 1929. Les quelques photographies d’époque qui nous en sont parvenues sont une invitation à s’adonner à ce même jeu de correspondances. Elles nous enjoignent à tenter de renouer le fl conducteur qui relie tous les choix de Jacques Doucet ainsi que leur mise en situation. L’observation de la forme du meuble, réduite à un simple jeu de rectangles, nous amène à une contemplation frontale et presque bidimensionnelle du décor des portes, à la manière d’un bas-relief ou d’un tableau. Pensons à La charmeuse de serpents du Douanier Rousseau, 1907, que Jacques Doucet acquiert en 1922 par le truchement d’André Breton auprès de Robert et Sonia Delaunay. Le traitement des grands bouquets d’herbe du premier plan au dessin précis et homogène, la composition verticale, son calme, l’éden exotique stylisé à la fois végétal et animal qu’évoquent ces deux oeuvres dans leur aspect formel en sont un refet qui stimule notre imaginaire tout autant que notre curiosité à percer toujours plus avant l’univers de Jacques Doucet. La photo in situ nous montre qu’à l’origine il était flanqué de deux petites étagères en quart de cercle accueillant des sculptures. Le programme décoratif du meuble, animalier et végétal, rappelle la passion de Jacques Doucet pour les sciences et la littérature. Les insectes qui ornent la base du meuble, évoluant ou prenant naissance principalement dans le sol, ne sont pas sans évoquer, par le jeu des correspondances cher à Doucet, Le bestiaire de Guillaume Apollinaire dont il acquiert le manuscrit dès 1911. Son programme décoratif semble dicté par Orphée sous la plume du poète.
"Regardez cette troupe infecte
Aux mille pattes, aux cent yeux :
Rotifères, cirons, insectes
Et microbes plus merveilleux
Que les sept merveilles du monde
Et le palais de Rosemonde"
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois collabore avec de grands décorateurs-ensembliers de la période Art Déco tel Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann ou encore dès 1923 avec des maisons de luxe telle Louis Vuitton, qui édite ses objets en ivoire. Il exécutera des décors de meubles pour d’autres grands commanditaires du décorateur, ainsi en 1929 pour monsieur et madame Nicolle, industriels du textile installés dans le Nord de la France. En 1925 il prend part à l’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, réalisant une partie de la frise du Grand Salon de Réception. La même année il participe à la décoration du restaurant Prunier. Notons enfn parmi ses réalisations les plus célèbres, le hall d’entrée de la Salle Pleyel, 1927.
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois, animalier sculptor and member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, was a regular exhibitor, throughout his career, in the Paris Salons d’Automne and the Salons des Artistes Décorateurs. It is tempting to imagine that the work of Le Bourgeois first came to the attention of Jacques Doucet – that passionate enthusiast of contemporary creativity and assiduous visitor to the salons of the day – in the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs of 1913. A review of the salon, published in the journal ‘Art et Décoration’, drew particular attention to the sculptor’s work and illustrated a series of delicately carved low-relief panels that featured the stylised forms of various animals set against grounds of formalised plants. This was surely the moment at which the sculptor introduced the repertoire of organic motifs – such as Solomon’s seals, ferns, wild horsetail and arum lilies – that were to become the basis for the decoration of his cabinet for Doucet. We know that Jacques Doucet met Eileen Gray (1878-1976) in this same Salon of 1913. He was attracted by her exhibit – her first – that included the enigmatic and now famous panel Aum Mane Padme Aum; several commissions followed. One might imagine a similar scenario in relation to Le Bourgeois, and the consequent commission by Jacques Doucet for the present cabinet, destined for his wife’s boudoir in their Paris residence at 46, avenue du Bois. In the previous year, Doucet had discovered at the Salon des Indépendants the work of Russian sculptor Léon Indenbaum (1891-1981). In 1913 Doucet commissioned from him a bas-relief, L'Idylle, executed in pink onyx and completed the following year for the dining room of the avenue du Bois (lot 4). A precious and hitherto unpublished period photographic document shows the cabinet in situ, set against the wall of the boudoir, beyond the day-bed by Pierre Legrain. Close examination of the image suggests that Doucet’s commission from Le Bourgeois was not limited to the cabinet; for one can discern a sculpted frieze that would suggest a greater degree of involvement on the part of the artist in the decorative scheme for this room. Jacques Doucet had a rare sensitivity towards the potential for inter-connections between works in all media, and he was no respecter of conventional hierarchies between the so-called fne and applied arts. He delighted in the nuanced interplay of forms and materials, of colours, themes and rhythms. This sensibility was to find its ultimate expression in the meticulously considered installation of his collection of paintings, sculpture, furnishings and objects in the Studio St James at Neuilly-sur- Seine – an interior that has acquired a mythical status for lovers of the arts. Doucet worked for several years on the refnement of this project, starting in the mid 1920s. His objective was to construct a ftting temple to the most visionary creativity of the era, integrating works acquired through a decade or more with appropriate new commissions from the most inspired contemporary artists and designers. The great patron had successfully fulflled his ambition by the time of his death in 1929. The rooms are well documented in a series of photographs, including colour images, that allow us to appreciate the treasures that Doucet had assembled and to savour the dialogue that he had engendered between the constituent elements of his collection. We can trace the unifying threads that run through his choices and enjoy the connections suggested by their placements. The simple rectilinear construction of the present cabinet focuses the viewer’s eye on the fat areas, the door panels delineated by the simple structures, as if on a painting or bas-relief within its frame. In pride of place in the centre of Doucet’s salon hung La Charmeuse de serpents by Douanier Rousseau, painted in 1907 and acquired by the collector in 1922 through the good ofices of André Breton from Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Here we see in the foreground large clusters of long grass drawn as a graphically precise pattern of lines, within a formal overall composition that depicts a magical exotic Eden of plant and animal life. Cabinet and painting share aspects of both theme and execution; these stimulate the imagination in parallel ways, while also ofering an intriguing insight into the aesthetic and spiritual universe of Jacques Doucet. The original photograph of the present cabinet in situ shows that it was fanked by slender shelf units of quartercircle section on which Doucet displayed sculptures. The decorative themes of fora and fauna that animate this cabinet are a reminder of Jacques Doucet’s passions within both the natural sciences and literature. The insects that grace the base, subjects associated with a subterranean or near-surface existence, remind us, through the kind of cross-connections that were dear to Doucet, of ‘Le bestiaire’ by Guillaume Apollinaire, the manuscript of which he had bought in 1911. His decorative program appears dictated by Orpheus as written by the poet :
Look at this lousy crowd,
A thousand feet, a hundred eyes :
Rotifers and insects, mites
And microbres-all more wonderful
Than the seven wonders of the world
Or even Rosemonde’s palace!
Guillaume Apollinaire, Le bestiaire, 1911
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois collaborated with the foremost decorators of the Art Deco period such as Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and, from 1923, with leading luxury goods manufacturing retailers such as Louis Vuitton, who sold his carved ivory creations. He conceived decorative elements for other pieces commissioned from Ruhlmann by major clients, such as those made in 1929 for Mr and Mrs Nicolle, textile manufacturers located in the North of France. In 1925 he participated in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, contributing a frieze element for the Grand Salon de Réception. In the same year he worked on the decoration of the restaurant Prunier, and two years later conceived one of his most famous projects, the entrance lobby for the Salle Pleyel in 1927.
"Regardez cette troupe infecte
Aux mille pattes, aux cent yeux :
Rotifères, cirons, insectes
Et microbes plus merveilleux
Que les sept merveilles du monde
Et le palais de Rosemonde"
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois collabore avec de grands décorateurs-ensembliers de la période Art Déco tel Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann ou encore dès 1923 avec des maisons de luxe telle Louis Vuitton, qui édite ses objets en ivoire. Il exécutera des décors de meubles pour d’autres grands commanditaires du décorateur, ainsi en 1929 pour monsieur et madame Nicolle, industriels du textile installés dans le Nord de la France. En 1925 il prend part à l’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, réalisant une partie de la frise du Grand Salon de Réception. La même année il participe à la décoration du restaurant Prunier. Notons enfn parmi ses réalisations les plus célèbres, le hall d’entrée de la Salle Pleyel, 1927.
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois, animalier sculptor and member of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, was a regular exhibitor, throughout his career, in the Paris Salons d’Automne and the Salons des Artistes Décorateurs. It is tempting to imagine that the work of Le Bourgeois first came to the attention of Jacques Doucet – that passionate enthusiast of contemporary creativity and assiduous visitor to the salons of the day – in the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs of 1913. A review of the salon, published in the journal ‘Art et Décoration’, drew particular attention to the sculptor’s work and illustrated a series of delicately carved low-relief panels that featured the stylised forms of various animals set against grounds of formalised plants. This was surely the moment at which the sculptor introduced the repertoire of organic motifs – such as Solomon’s seals, ferns, wild horsetail and arum lilies – that were to become the basis for the decoration of his cabinet for Doucet. We know that Jacques Doucet met Eileen Gray (1878-1976) in this same Salon of 1913. He was attracted by her exhibit – her first – that included the enigmatic and now famous panel Aum Mane Padme Aum; several commissions followed. One might imagine a similar scenario in relation to Le Bourgeois, and the consequent commission by Jacques Doucet for the present cabinet, destined for his wife’s boudoir in their Paris residence at 46, avenue du Bois. In the previous year, Doucet had discovered at the Salon des Indépendants the work of Russian sculptor Léon Indenbaum (1891-1981). In 1913 Doucet commissioned from him a bas-relief, L'Idylle, executed in pink onyx and completed the following year for the dining room of the avenue du Bois (lot 4). A precious and hitherto unpublished period photographic document shows the cabinet in situ, set against the wall of the boudoir, beyond the day-bed by Pierre Legrain. Close examination of the image suggests that Doucet’s commission from Le Bourgeois was not limited to the cabinet; for one can discern a sculpted frieze that would suggest a greater degree of involvement on the part of the artist in the decorative scheme for this room. Jacques Doucet had a rare sensitivity towards the potential for inter-connections between works in all media, and he was no respecter of conventional hierarchies between the so-called fne and applied arts. He delighted in the nuanced interplay of forms and materials, of colours, themes and rhythms. This sensibility was to find its ultimate expression in the meticulously considered installation of his collection of paintings, sculpture, furnishings and objects in the Studio St James at Neuilly-sur- Seine – an interior that has acquired a mythical status for lovers of the arts. Doucet worked for several years on the refnement of this project, starting in the mid 1920s. His objective was to construct a ftting temple to the most visionary creativity of the era, integrating works acquired through a decade or more with appropriate new commissions from the most inspired contemporary artists and designers. The great patron had successfully fulflled his ambition by the time of his death in 1929. The rooms are well documented in a series of photographs, including colour images, that allow us to appreciate the treasures that Doucet had assembled and to savour the dialogue that he had engendered between the constituent elements of his collection. We can trace the unifying threads that run through his choices and enjoy the connections suggested by their placements. The simple rectilinear construction of the present cabinet focuses the viewer’s eye on the fat areas, the door panels delineated by the simple structures, as if on a painting or bas-relief within its frame. In pride of place in the centre of Doucet’s salon hung La Charmeuse de serpents by Douanier Rousseau, painted in 1907 and acquired by the collector in 1922 through the good ofices of André Breton from Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Here we see in the foreground large clusters of long grass drawn as a graphically precise pattern of lines, within a formal overall composition that depicts a magical exotic Eden of plant and animal life. Cabinet and painting share aspects of both theme and execution; these stimulate the imagination in parallel ways, while also ofering an intriguing insight into the aesthetic and spiritual universe of Jacques Doucet. The original photograph of the present cabinet in situ shows that it was fanked by slender shelf units of quartercircle section on which Doucet displayed sculptures. The decorative themes of fora and fauna that animate this cabinet are a reminder of Jacques Doucet’s passions within both the natural sciences and literature. The insects that grace the base, subjects associated with a subterranean or near-surface existence, remind us, through the kind of cross-connections that were dear to Doucet, of ‘Le bestiaire’ by Guillaume Apollinaire, the manuscript of which he had bought in 1911. His decorative program appears dictated by Orpheus as written by the poet :
Look at this lousy crowd,
A thousand feet, a hundred eyes :
Rotifers and insects, mites
And microbres-all more wonderful
Than the seven wonders of the world
Or even Rosemonde’s palace!
Guillaume Apollinaire, Le bestiaire, 1911
Gaston-Etienne Le Bourgeois collaborated with the foremost decorators of the Art Deco period such as Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and, from 1923, with leading luxury goods manufacturing retailers such as Louis Vuitton, who sold his carved ivory creations. He conceived decorative elements for other pieces commissioned from Ruhlmann by major clients, such as those made in 1929 for Mr and Mrs Nicolle, textile manufacturers located in the North of France. In 1925 he participated in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, contributing a frieze element for the Grand Salon de Réception. In the same year he worked on the decoration of the restaurant Prunier, and two years later conceived one of his most famous projects, the entrance lobby for the Salle Pleyel in 1927.