ART DECO
MARTELL GALLERY
Alfred Porteneuve
Set of Four arm chairs
Rosewood
Location: Madrid
White-glove shipping available worldwide. Contact for quote.
Location: Madrid
White-glove shipping available worldwide. Contact for quote.
A2068
€ 12,000.00
A suite of four French Art Deco bridge armchairs by Alfred Porteneuve, executed in the early 1930s in the restrained, architectural idiom the designer refined during the years immediately before...
A suite of four French Art Deco bridge armchairs by Alfred Porteneuve, executed in the early 1930s in the restrained, architectural idiom the designer refined during the years immediately before he took over the atelier of his uncle Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann in 1933. Each chair is built on a French-polished mahogany frame and upholstered in a pale sage-green velvet with cleanly tailored seat cushions and lightly tensioned back panels.
The proportions are domestic and conversational rather than ceremonial: a low rectangular back with softly chamfered upper corners, open arms that sweep forward in a single continuous curve from the rear stile, and a seat carried on tapered sabre legs at the rear paired with subtly faceted, slightly inward-canted front legs. The transition from arm to front leg is articulated by a small carved volute — a signature Porteneuve detail visible on his documented bridge and dining chairs of the period.
Bridge chairs of this type were designed for the salon or to surround a games or dining table, and the form-language here is fully consistent with Porteneuve's extending rosewood games-dining table of the same period (also in our inventory) and with the three-seat sofa attributed to the same hand. Read together, the three pieces form a coherent salon de 1930 ensemble.
The set is in fine restored condition: upholstery recently refreshed, frames French-polished and even in tone across all four chairs, no visible losses or structural repairs. Sets of four matching Porteneuve armchairs are uncommon on the secondary market — pairs and singles appear far more frequently — and the survival of an unbroken suite at this scale is part of what gives the group its standing.
Designer
Alfred Porteneuve (1896–1949) trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and worked in the orbit of his uncle Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann throughout the 1920s, contributing to the celebrated Hôtel du Collectionneur at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. On Ruhlmann's death in 1933, Porteneuve inherited and continued the atelier, executing both completion of Ruhlmann's outstanding commissions and his own designs through the late 1930s and into the post-war years. His mature work is characterised by sober proportion, precise joinery, sabre-leg silhouettes and a preference for exotic hardwoods — palissandre, macassar ebony, sycamore, mahogany — finished to a deep French polish.
Provenance
Private collection, France
Literature / References
Tajan, Arts Décoratifs du XXe siècle, Paris, 4 December 2012, lots 92 and 109 (comparable Porteneuve walnut armchair groups)
Florence Camard, Ruhlmann, Éditions du Regard — for the Ruhlmann–Porteneuve atelier transition
Condition
Frames clean and even, French polish recently refreshed; upholstery recently renewed in pale sage velvet, unworn; all four chairs matched in scale, finish and seat height. Inspection welcome.
The proportions are domestic and conversational rather than ceremonial: a low rectangular back with softly chamfered upper corners, open arms that sweep forward in a single continuous curve from the rear stile, and a seat carried on tapered sabre legs at the rear paired with subtly faceted, slightly inward-canted front legs. The transition from arm to front leg is articulated by a small carved volute — a signature Porteneuve detail visible on his documented bridge and dining chairs of the period.
Bridge chairs of this type were designed for the salon or to surround a games or dining table, and the form-language here is fully consistent with Porteneuve's extending rosewood games-dining table of the same period (also in our inventory) and with the three-seat sofa attributed to the same hand. Read together, the three pieces form a coherent salon de 1930 ensemble.
The set is in fine restored condition: upholstery recently refreshed, frames French-polished and even in tone across all four chairs, no visible losses or structural repairs. Sets of four matching Porteneuve armchairs are uncommon on the secondary market — pairs and singles appear far more frequently — and the survival of an unbroken suite at this scale is part of what gives the group its standing.
Designer
Alfred Porteneuve (1896–1949) trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and worked in the orbit of his uncle Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann throughout the 1920s, contributing to the celebrated Hôtel du Collectionneur at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. On Ruhlmann's death in 1933, Porteneuve inherited and continued the atelier, executing both completion of Ruhlmann's outstanding commissions and his own designs through the late 1930s and into the post-war years. His mature work is characterised by sober proportion, precise joinery, sabre-leg silhouettes and a preference for exotic hardwoods — palissandre, macassar ebony, sycamore, mahogany — finished to a deep French polish.
Provenance
Private collection, France
Literature / References
Tajan, Arts Décoratifs du XXe siècle, Paris, 4 December 2012, lots 92 and 109 (comparable Porteneuve walnut armchair groups)
Florence Camard, Ruhlmann, Éditions du Regard — for the Ruhlmann–Porteneuve atelier transition
Condition
Frames clean and even, French polish recently refreshed; upholstery recently renewed in pale sage velvet, unworn; all four chairs matched in scale, finish and seat height. Inspection welcome.