Eugène Vallin, Pair Of Showcases Making Bedside. Rare (art Nouveau)

Exceptional pair of display cases commissioned by ”Masson-Bachelard”, c.1904 Padouk wood, or sandalwood, molded and carved in a quarter circle. The cabinet opens at the top with a curved glass door that reveals a glass shelf and three drawers. In the lower part, a door reveals a white marble background. Its top is capped with a pediment ending in grooved volutes forming a niche. The two front feet are subtly animated. "Reed" drawer handles and gilded brass door knobs. AN ART NEW MASTERPIECE Among the great patrons of the Art Nouveau period, Jean-Baptiste Eugène Corbin is a paragon. Having made a fortune with his chain of department stores, he employed the most famous figures of the School of Nancy, including Majorelle, Daum and Prouvé. In 1903, his brother-in-law and partner Charles Masson called on Eugène Vallin, assisted by Victor Prouvé, for the creation of an exceptional dining room now on display at the Musée de l'École de Nancy, former Corbin house. A year later, in February 1904, at the wedding of his daughter Renée Masson (Nancy, 1885 - Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1968) with the lawyer and store manager Pierre Bachelard (Sarreguemines, 1877-1970), Vallin receives the order for a dining room and a bedroom for the apartment the young couple occupies at 8, rue Mazagran in Nancy. The artist's watercolor drawings reveal the importance of this commission, the dining room of which is also presented at the Decorative Arts Exhibition in Nancy in October of the same year. After the Masson-Bachelard couple left Nancy, the bed, the wardrobe, the dressing table and this pair of display bedside tables would be sold to a certain Alphonse Gaudin, 97 rue Charles III in Nancy. The furniture was then auctioned off at the auction house on rue du sergent Blandan in Nancy, in 1956 (according to Charpentier) or at the beginning of the 1960s (according to the buyers). A couple of Nancy academics bought the bedside tables: Pierre Danchin, associate professor of English, future president of the University of Nancy II and his wife Georgette, mother of a large family. Their children remember with precision the arrival of the bedside tables at the beginning of the 1960s. The bed and the wardrobe were once again auctioned off on March 25, 1982. The Musée d'Orsay was not mistaken and then acquired the Bachelard-Masson bed (OAO 710) and its cabinet (OAO 711), exhibited in room 64 of the museum. Figurative decor this room owes its beauty to the use of a particularly precious exotic wood: the padauk. Our bedside tables, with quite unusual dimensions, illustrate the “expressive” period of Eugène Vallin. The artist simplifies his lines and turns to stylization. On our furniture, the “Vallin sheath”, one of the great constants of his art, forms the link between the pediment and the glass door. It is the scene of a play of lines where we imagine the plant motif in its molded volutes (Descouturelle, image n ° 28, p. 97). The bed and the rest of the furniture in this room are more than instruments of rest. As Frédéric Descouturelle writes in his monograph dedicated to the artist, they are “a formidable vessel sailing on the sea of dreams”. Provenance: Commission from Renée Masson and Pierre Bachelard to Eugène Vallin for their bedroom at 8 rue Mazagran in Nancy, January 1904. Alphonse Gaudin collection, 97 rue Charles III in Nancy. Acquired by Pierre and Georgette Danchin, at auction in Nancy, in 1956 or at the beginning of the 1960s. By descent, Nancy. Related works: Eugène Vallin, Bachelard-Masson bed, Musée d'Orsay (202 x 272 cm, OAO 710) Eugène Vallin, Armoire Bachelard-Masson, Musée d'Orsay (280 x 213 x 65 cm, OAO 711). Eugène Vallin, Hairdresser Bachelard-Masson, disappeared work. Bibliography: Marc Bascou, Marie-Madeleine Massé and Philippe Thiébaut, “Musée d'Orsay. Illustrated summary catalog of decorative arts ”, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1988. Françoise-Thérèse Charpentier,“ Le Jardin des arts ”, Tallandier, Paris, 1960. Frédéric Descouturelle,“ Eugène Vallin menuisier d'art or industrial artist (1856 -1922) ”, Association of Friends of the Museum of the School of Nancy, Nancy, 1998. Reproduced p. 214, described on p. 304 as “corner display-bedside tables”.