Muguet de Paris

Time will tell if this is coincidence or the beginning of a trend, but the first months of the year have shown a renewed interest in Madeleine Castaing. Fifteen years after her death, a documentary on the life of the French antiquaire and decorator had its premiere in San Francisco in January (1). Now, in Paris, a biography by Jean-Noël Liaut (2) is linked to an exhibition of her furniture (3) in the Galerie du Passage in the Galerie Véro-Dodat.

Castaing probably did more than anyone to make 19th Century furniture respectable.  The “style Castaing” employs a 19th Century aesthetic, seen through 20th Century eyes.  It is an idealized tribute to that period that could only have been conceived by someone who had not lived through it. Eclectic in its execution, rather than historically faithful, it sifts through a range of styles from Directoire to Napoléon III, its components spanning the century and blending provenance.

Castaing has long been a favorite of francophile American decorators, and one has only to enter the exhibition to understand the inspiration for so many of the trends that flourished in the 80′s and 90′s. And yet, how audacious, how original all of these things must have seemed when she introduced them.

Imagine, 50 years ago, leopard print carpeting, or iron furniture invited in from the garden to grace the salon, or Napoléonic campaign furniture, an extravagant superposition of assorted prints amassed on a bed. Chairs were upholstered in vividly-colored velvet framed in gilded wood. Castaing was said to favor neoclassic; her interiors were, in fact, neo-you-name-it.

Throughout, one sees touches of the renowned bleu Castaing. It is an elusive color and somewhat difficult to describe, a sort of Wedgwood that aspires to the blue of French opaline glass, by way of a robin’s egg. 

Madeleine Castaing was an original, known for her eccentricity and her high-profile associations, such as with Cocteau and with her protégé, Soutine, as much as for her work. Picasso once described her as the most beautiful woman in all of Paris, but her allure long outlasted her beauty.

Wearing a reddish wig held in place by an elastic under the chin, her eyes fringed with spidery, heavily mascaraed false lashes, she held court in her gallery at the corner of rue Bonaparte and rue Jacob.  Today it is the home of Ladurée on the Left Bank; the temple of taste and conversation now dispenses macarons. As capricious in her business practices as in her taste, it is said she only sold to those who pleased her.  Those who did not were simply told the item was not for sale.

The exhibition continues until the 15th of March.  If you are in Paris during that time, it is well worth seeing.  I just may have to return to buy the book.

Jan del Monte, blogging from the rue du Cherche-Midi, Paris, France

(1) Madeleine Castaing, documentary by Christopher Flach.

(2) Liaut, Jean-Noël, Madeleine Castaing, mécène à Montparnasse, décoratrice à Saint-Germain-des-Prés (éd. Payot), €20.

(3) Du coté de chez Madeleine, Galerie du Passage, 20-26 Galerie Véro-Dodat, 75001 Paris.  Until 15 March.

Photo Credits: Top – Cover art for Liaut book. Center – Napoléon III chairs from the bedroom of Madeleine Castaing (courtesy of Connaissance des Arts). Bottom – Portrait of Madeleine Castaing by Chaim Soutine, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).

© 2008 Jan del Monte

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~ by Jane del Monte on March 7, 2008.

Posted in Antiquaires, Books and Films, Design and Decoration, Exhibitions, Salons, Museums, People