JEAN-MICHEL FRANK | LOW TABLE

L’Arc en Seine, Paris

Léopold Diego Sanchez, Jean-Michel Frank, Paris, 1997, pp. 67 and 206-207 (for related models)

Pierre-Emmanuel Martin Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank, Paris, 2006, pp. 94-95 (for a related model)

Jean-Michel Frank: Un Décorateur dans le Paris des Années 30, Paris, 2009, p. 95 (for a related model)

Laure Verchère, Jean-Michel Frank, New York, 2018, p. 25

This lot is offered together with a certificate of authenticity from the Comité Jean-Michel Frank.

Jean-Michel Frank’s fascination for fine and precious materials was central to his practice as a furniture designer. For Frank, who never formally belonged to a modernist movement, materials were a means, not an end. He selected materials and their various textures—mica, straw, plaster, terracotta, shagreen, obsidian and parchment—like pigments from a color palette that contributed to the creation of exceptional decorative schemes. The present lot is a testament to his creative use of non-traditional materials like mica, here embellishing the low table’s wood structure. The physical properties of mica have been revered by artisans since ancient times. A mineral composed of aluminum silicate, it is resistant to heat and naturally cleaves into perfect sheets, which makes it an ideal material for glazing windows, as the ancient Romans did. Japanese artisans admired its metallic luster, inlaying it in lacquer and applying it to block prints. Frank revered mica as much as his ancient predecessors and reserved its use for works for some of his most important commissions, including the homes of Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles and Templeton Crocker’s San Francisco penthouse. Similar mica-covered tables appeared in the designer’s own smoking room.