Displaying items by tag: decorative objects

In 1943, the Allied team known as the Monuments Men were instrumental in recovering roughly 3,500 artworks that were confiscated by the Nazis during World War II and stashed hidden in salt mines for the intended purpose of going toward Adolf Hitler's proposed Führermuseum in Linz.

Among those artistic treasures were about 250 of the finest jewels, decorative objects and paintings collected by Austria’s Baron and Baroness Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild, which include an Art Deco emerald and diamond brooch that the Baron gave the Baroness on their 25th wedding anniversary.

Since its founding in 2007, Gil Walsh Interiors has quietly emerged as a premier design firm, noted not only for exquisitely detailed work, but also for the diversity of their projects. From luxury homes, country clubs, and executive offices to elegant resort hotels, the Gil Walsh touch has brought a unique sense of place to distinguished interiors from coast to coast. With offices in Palm Beach and Martha’s Vineyard, the firm applies cutting edge methods and materials to produce environments that transcend trends, while taking into consideration the client’s unique vision.

The firm is helmed by Gil Walsh -- one of the country’s leading interior designers, best known for her refined aesthetic and knack for seamlessly integrating style and function into all of her projects.

Visit the full collection on InCollect.com to view all of Gil Walsh Interiors’ top Palm Beach picks, including mid century modern furniture, rare textiles, and eclectic decorative objects.

Few design objects are as immediately recognizable as Piero Fornasetti’s (1913-1988) ceramic plates. They are boldly graphic and deliciously surreal, boasting an array of trompe l'oeil motifs that range from fish and flowers to the face of Lina Cavalieri -- a nineteenth-century opera singer. But Fornasetti did not stop at ceramics. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, the Milanese artist and designer created over 13,000 works. He churned out furniture, fabrics, and a swathe of decorative objects -- from trays and paperweights to screens and umbrella stands -- emblazoned with his distinct and irreverent designs.

Fornasetti is the subject of a major retrospective currently on view at the Louvre’s Les Arts Décoratifs, in Paris. To read more about the Piero Fornasetti exhibit, visit InCollect.com.

On Sunday, February 1, 2015, the 61st iteration of the inimitable Winter Antiques Show drew to a close at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Over the course of the ten-day event, collectors, first-time buyers, museum curators, interior designers, and dealers, took to the show floor to browse and snap up fine art, furniture, and decorative objects from antiquity through the 1960s (Fig. 1).

The show kicked off on Thursday, January 22, 2015, with an Opening Night Preview Party that welcomed nearly 2,000 attendees, including Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Arie and Coco Kopelman, Ellie Cullman, Thomas Jayne, Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, Sandra Nunnerley, and John Douglas Eason. The Preview Party, which benefited the East Side House Settlement, a community-based organization in the South Bronx, gave guests an opportunity to peruse and purchase works before the show opened to the public on Friday, January 23, 2015.

Christie’s announces the sale of two Italian private collections, the first from the Rome apartment of Principessa Ismene Chigi Della Rovere and the second from the palazzo of a Noble Genoese Family. Comprising over 225 lots this diverse sale offers collectors and decorators a wonderful insight into 20th century Italian style and glamour, presenting a rich and varied selection of Old Master pictures and decorative objects from around the world, which range from 18th century Italian and French furniture and Art Nouveau glass, to Chinese and Japanese works of art. Estimates range from £500 to £25,000 and the pre-sale viewing will be at Christie’s 85 Old Brompton Road from January 31 to February 3. The auction will be held on February 4, 2015 at Christie’s South Kensington and provides an opportunity to acquire exceptional antiques and works of art from two noble Italian families.

The art of French lacquer developed in the late 17th century in response to the rising popularity of Japanese and Chinese lacquerware and quickly led to concentration of gilder-varnisher workshops in the Saint-Antoine quarter in Paris where the cabinetmakers and joiners were already established. The French even developed their own technique, Vernis Martin — as recently retraced in an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris — that enabled the craftsmen to generate blues, greens, and yellows, in addition to Asian reds and blacks. Vernis Martin was soon used to cover all kinds of materials and decorative objects, from woodwork paneling to musical instruments and even horse-drawn carriages.

While lacquering is most traditionally associated with wood and bamboo, it can also be applied on metal, and it is this technique that the skilled craftsmen and women at Hermès have applied in miniature to a new limited edition collection of three new watches under the Arceau Cheval d’Orient name.

The home of René Lalique in Wingen-sur-Mode, where the glass designer would stay when visiting his nearby factory, is currently being transformed into a luxury hotel that should start welcoming guest as Villa Lalique in the spring of 2015, Silvio Denz, CEO of Lalique and a longtime collector of the famed glass master’s perfume bottles, told Blouin Lifestyle.

Lalique, who founded his company in 1885, started his career as a jeweler, but is today probably better known for his decorative objects from perfume bottles to vases. He founded his factory in Wingen-sur Mode, which is in the Vosges in the North-east of France, in 1921 and the villa dates from the period and is typical of the architecture found in the Alsace region with half-timbering.

Ever since Rachel Lambert Mellon died in March at the age of 103, the art world has been wondering what would become of the vast treasures of art and objects that she and her husband, Paul Mellon, had collected and lived with.

On Tuesday, Sotheby’s announced that it had landed the sale of the estate of Mrs. Mellon, winning it over its rival Christie’s. The auctions, starting in November, will be among the most highly anticipated sales from a fabled family collection, with more than $100 million of art, jewelry, furniture and decorative objects. Proceeds will benefit the Gerald B. Lambert Foundation, a charitable entity established by Mrs. Mellon, known as Bunny, in memory of her father. The foundation supports the Oak Spring Garden Library, Mrs. Mellon’s celebrated collection of rare books, manuscripts, works of art and artifacts relating to horticulture, landscape design and natural history.

From the rivers and lakes of his childhood in the Champagne region to the pond at Clairefontaine, his estate near Paris, French jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique (1860-1945) was inspired by the flora and fauna underwater and skimming the surface—fish, sea horses, dragonflies, frogs, turtles, swans, water lilies—and by the shimmering water itself.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York are joining forces with the Outdoor Advertising Association to execute the “outdoor art show,” Art Everywhere. The interactive art campaign will display images of the greatest American artworks on billboards and signs in select cities across the United States.

The participating museums have created a master list of 100 American artworks from their combined holdings and are asking the public to visit www.ArtEverywhereUS.org and vote for their favorite pieces. The 50 most popular works will be featured throughout August on approximately 50,000 billboards and signs across the country. Art Everywhere’s master list includes paintings, drawings, decorative objects, photographs, and multimedia works from the 18th century to 2008. Artists represented on the ballot include Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock.

Voting will remain open until June 20 and the chosen works will be unveiled on August 4.