JEAN DUNAND | “PANTHÈRE NOIRE ET JAGUAR” TWO-PANEL SCREEN

Private Collection, Europe

Acquired from the above by the present owner, circa 1990

Félix Marcilhac, Jean Dunand: His Life and Works, London, 1991, p. 200, no. 1 (for the present lot illustrated)

Félix Marcilhac, Paul Jouve, Paris, 2005, pp. 106 (for a period photograph of the present lot exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit) and 110

Pierre Sanchez, Les expositions de la Galerie Georges Petit, 1881-1934, Paris, 2011, p. 712, no. 10

Throughout his prolific career, Jean Dunand maintained close professional relationships with many contemporary Art Deco masters such as Jean Goulden, Jean Lambert-Rucki and Gustave Miklos. He also collaborated with furniture designers such as Eugène Printz and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann on the creation of specific furniture commissions involving high-quality lacquerware. It is however his recurrent work with animalier artist Paul Jouve that perhaps best encapsulates the figurative Orientalism and taste for the exotic that permeate his work throughout the 1920s. 

The Galerie Georges Petit in Paris presented the creations of both Dunand and Jouve as early as 1921, a year that marked their inaugural exhibition where the present two-panel screen was first exhibited. The show opened on December 15 and was a sensation in many ways. Madame Dunand herself indeed noted in her journal that it had been a “great success,” further commenting on its spectacular turnout. Most of the works on view, whether they were paintings, tapestries, screens, dinanderie or smaller objects, were sold as soon as the exhibition opened and a great number of private orders were placed shortly thereafter. 

A variety of panels by Dunand were presented: one depicting a cypress-studded landscape in Macedonia based on a sketch by Jean Goulden, another featuring fishing boats inspired by Henri de Waroquier. Others were designed in collaboration with Jean Lambert-Rucki and Jean Goulden. The two lacquered pieces created with Paul Jouve, however, immediately garnered much critical and popular praise. The first, a panel described under number 9 in the catalogue and depicting a single black panther, is now held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The much larger number 10, the present lot, prominently occupied the center of the Parisian gallery, as evidenced by the accompanying archival photograph. 

As it was the case for the previously cited works, Jouve created the original cartoon and Dunand took charge of the execution. This two-panel screen distinguishes itself from the other works in the exhibition by its incredibly rich and dense surface. Beside the wonderfully figurative rendering of the two panthers, the panels display a wide variety of colors and textures, ranging from bright red lacquer to shimmering gold lacquer, only augmented with ivory details and delicate eggshell compositions. Majestic when seen in person, this work brings together Jouve’s skillful sense of composition and Dunand’s far-reaching abilities as a skilled craftsman, making this present lot an early and absolute collaborative chef d’œuvre of Art Deco.