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  Jan et Joel Martel / Primavera French Art Deco Courting Fantail Pigeon Sculptures c.1930

  JAN ET JOËL MARTEL (1896-1966)  France
  PRIMAVERA  Paris

  Pair of courting Faintail Pigeon Sculptures  c.1925-30

  Black glazed earthenware with silver / platinum decorative dot motif.

  Marks: PRIMAVERA FRANCE, 12684

  For related model: The Art Deco Style in Household Objects, Architecture, Scupture, Graphics, Jewelry, Theodore Menten (New York: Dover, 1972), p. 179.

  For more information see: Joël et Jan Martel: sculpteurs 1896-1966, Christophe Vital, et al. (Paris: Gallimard / Electa, 1996), pp. 127-9

  H: 8 1/16” x L: 9” x D at tail: 5 1/4”
  H: 7 1/8” x L: 10” x D at tail: 5 1/4”

  Jan & Joël Martel (the Martel Brothers/Twins, born in Nantes on 5 April 1896, both died in 1966)

  The twin Martel sculptors were among the founding members of Union des Artistes Modernes, and their original works include ornamental sculptures, statues, monuments and fountains displaying characteristics typical of the Art Déco and Cubist periods. The brothers took part in a number of Paris exhibitions including the Salon des Indépendants, Salon d’Automne, Salon des Tuileries and the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in 1925.  In 1932, they created the Claude Debussy monument which sits on the boulevard Lannes in Paris. Between 1924-1926, Robert Mallet-Stevens designed a studio for the Martel twins at 10 Rue Mallet-Stevens in Paris’ 16th Arrondissement.

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  Sori Yanagi / Tendo Co. Ltd. / Japanese Crafts “Butterfly” Stool c.1956

  Sori Yanagi (1915-2012), Japan
  Tendo Co. Ltd., Japan

  Butterfly stool, 1956.

  Bleached rosewood veneer on plywood with brass.

  H: 15” x W: 16 ½” x D: 12”

  Price: $4,900

  This model can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

  The Japanese designer Sori Yanagi is best known for his 1956 Butterfly Stool. It is both elegant and utterly simple: two curved pieces of molded plywood are held together through compression and tension by a single brass rod. The stool’s graceful shape recalls a butterfly’s wings, and has also been compared to the form of torii, the traditional Shinto shrine gates. He loved traditional Japanese crafts and was dedicated to the modernist principles of simplicity, practicality and tactility that are associated with Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, and Le Corbusier.”

  Yanagi, who studied architecture and art at Tokyo’s Academy of Fine Art, was inspired by the work of Le Corbusier and by the designer Charlotte Perriand, with whom he worked in the early 1940s, while she was in Tokyo as the arts and crafts adviser to the Japanese Board of Trade. But perhaps the most indelible influence on Yanagi was that of his father, Soetsu Yanagi, who led the “mingei” movement, which celebrated Japanese folk craft and the beauty of everyday objects, and who founded the Nihon Mingeikan (or Japanese Folk Crafts Museum) in Tokyo. Yanagi fils, who was named director of the museum in 1977, succinctly described his design aesthetic in a 2002 interview in The Japan Times: “I try to create things that we human beings feel are useful in our daily lives. During the process, beauty is born naturally.” Throughout his life, Sori Yanagi was inspired by what he called “anonymous design” — he cited the Jeep and a baseball glove as two examples — and he in turn inspired younger designers, like Naoto Fukasawa, Tom Dixon and Jasper Morrison.

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  Archibald Knox / Liberty & Co. Important and Rare Tudric Clock 1902

  ARCHIBALD KNOX (1864-1933) UK
  LIBERTY & CO. London

  Extremely rare and important grand clock by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co. This is the largest of all of the Tudric models designed and is inset with abalone shell on the sides, the front corners and on the hands of the clock.

  Marks: TUDRIC, 098

  Illustrated: The Designs of Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co., A..J. Tilbrook (London: Ornament Press Ltd., 1976) pg. 88; The Liberty Style, (Japan: Hida Takayama Museum of Arts, 1999) fig. 168, p 114; Archibald Knox, ed. by Stephen A. Martin (London: Academy Editions, 1995) p. 88.

  H: 15″ x W: 7″ x D: 5″

  ***This is the largest clock designed by Archibald Knox for
  Liberty & Co. and one of only three models known.

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  Christopher Dresser / Heath & Middleton Petite claret jug 1887

  CHRISTOPHER DRESSER (1834-1904) UK

  HEATH & MIDDLETON   Birmingham, England

  Petite claret jug   1887

  Sterling silver mounts with hinged covers to both top and spout, glass, ebony handle

  Marks: JTH & JHM in a four-lobed cartouche, London assay marks for 1887 (“M” in a shield), Vienna import mark (conjoined AV in a 6-sided cartouche)

  Illustrated: Industrial Design Unikate Serienerzeugnisse, Die Neue Sammlung ein neuer Museumstyp des 20. Jahrhunderts, Hans Wichmann (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1985), p. 131; Christopher Dresser, ein Viktorianischer Designer, 1834-1904 (Cologne: Kunstgewerbemuseum der Stadt Köln, 1981), p. 73, ill. 86, cat. no. 23; Industrial Design, John Heskett (New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 24, illus. 9; Christopher Dresser 1834-1904, Michael Collins (London: Camden Arts Centre, 1979), p. 171, cat.no.12.

  H: 6” x Dia: 4”