Domenico Raimondo, Head of Design, Europe and Senior International Specialist, said, “For the first time Phillips will be offering a French Art Deco environment, an unrivaled masterpiece of historical significance that embodies the very notion of luxury and craftsmanship that characterizes that period. Through various layers of lacquer built upon different material surfaces, with 'Les Palmiers' Jean Dunand reached the apex of his career. This is a very different kind of space to those we have offered previously and yet, in its timelessness and abstraction, it fits perfectly, crowning them all. For all the aforementioned reasons we are immensely proud to be given the opportunity to present 'Les Palmiers' for the first time outside of France.”
On the occasion of the landmark 1925 Paris 'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes', Dunand was invited by the president of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs to design a smoking room for the French Embassy Pavilion. It marked the first time Dunand used lacquered panels to delineate an entire room and the work was highly acclaimed by critics. At the 1925 exhibition, Dunand’s lacquer designs for the car interiors of coachbuilder Henri Binder were also exhibited. It is through this collaboration that Dunand received the commission for the present smoking room for Mademoiselle Colette Aboucaya, whose family had recently acquired Binder’s company.
