Live Auction 16175Design
PIERRE LEGRAIN (1888–1929)
Lot 17 PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION

PIERRE LEGRAIN (1888–1929)

A UNIQUE FLATWARE SERVICE AND CANTEEN, 1920-25

Closed20 June 2018

Price Realised

USD 828,500

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PIERRE LEGRAIN (1888–1929)
A UNIQUE FLATWARE SERVICE AND CANTEEN, 1920-25
executed by Jean E. Puiforcat and Robert Linzeler
the service: silver, steel, bakelite, ebony
the canteen: sycamore, nickel plated metal

comprising:
24 table knives, forks and spoons
24 dessert knives, forks and spoons
18 fruit knives and forks
12 ice cream spoons
12 coffee spoons
with marks of Jean E. Puiforcat, Robert Linzeler and French hall mark

Jeanne Tachard;
Thence by descent;
Anne-Sophie Duval, Paris;
Private collection, Europe;
Christie's, London, A Private European Collection of French 20th Century
Decorative Arts, 10 May 2000, lot 34;
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Specialist note

This service is part of a large and important commission made by Pierre Legrain for Madame Jeanne Tachard for her villa at La Celle-Saint-Cloud. The original commission comprised two canteens, one containing coral bakelite handled pieces, presented here, the other with green bakelite handled items. Legrain was introduced to Madame Tachard by the celebrated couturier Jacques Doucet for whom he had already been working closely for years.

Discussing Legrain’s furniture and schemes for the villa in L’Amour de l’Art, the critic Gaston Varenne notes ‘here Legrain has truly expressed the full measure of his talent’ and highlights Legrain’s ability to reinvent himself and his design vocabulary, drawing a parallel with the cubists’ search for a new formal language.