Pierre Chareau

Grand Hôtel de Tours

Private collection, Paris

Michel Souillac collection, Paris

Drouot Montaigne, M^es Poulain - Le Fur, Paris, 5 April 1993, lot 311

Galerie Doria, Paris

Private collection, Paris, 2002

Artcurial, Paris, 26 November 2019, lot 45

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Private collection, Paris

For our furniture :

1930 : quand le meuble devient sculpture, exhibition catalogue, Le Louvre des Antiquaires, Paris, 6 March- 6 June 1981, reproduced n°96

Pierre Chareau, Mobilier, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Doria, Paris, 18 October 2002 - 20 February 2003, reproduced pl. 4 and 5

Marc Bédarida and Francis Lamond, Pierre Chareau: I. biographie, expositions, mobilier, Paris, 2023, referenced under n°18 p. 342 

For a variant of the model :

Kenneth Frampton et Marc Vellay, Pierre Chareau : architecte-meublier, 1883-1950, Paris, 1984, p. 85 and 210

Brian Brace Taylor, Pierre Chareau : designer and architect, Köln, 1992, p. 95

Pierre Chareau, architecte : un art d’intérieur, exhibition catalogue, Centre Georges Pompidou,Paris, 3 November 1993 - 17 January 1994 , p. 171-172

Pierre Chareau : modern architecture and design, exhibition catalogue, Jewish Museum, New York, 4 November 2016 - 26 March 2017, p. 46 and 143

Pierre Chareau’s furniture, like architecture, is based on the principles of modularity, movement and contrasting materials, as illustrated by our newspaper stand, a variant of the MT 407 model. Specially designed by Pierre Chareau for the Grand Hotel de Tours in 1927, our piece features a loadbearing structure in patinated hammered flat iron, on which mobile shelves articulate, complemented by a mahogany side box. This piece demonstrates Pierre Chareau’s taste for minimalist geometric compositions and airy lines, as well as his attention to furniture functionality.

Combining the elegance of cabinetmaking with the raw solidity of a hammered iron frame with exposed screws,

whose manufacture Chareau entrusted to ironworker Louis Dalbet, it is a signature piece of furniture, a perfect illustration of Pierre Chareau’s modernity in the artistic landscape of the 1920s.