Lacquered Chinoiserie Cabinet, French Art Déco, circa 1940

The dialogue between France and China, conducted through lacquerwork, porcelain and silk, is one of the most enduring currents in the history of European decorative arts. From the Coromandel lacquers incorporated into the panelling of Versailles to the folding screens of the eighteenth-century boudoir, French craftsmen had long sought to emulate and reinterpret the techniques and vocabularies of Chinese art. By the 1930s, this fascination found a fresh expression within the Art Déco movement, whose designers fused the geometry of the modern style with the elegance of oriental motifs to produce objects of striking pictorial richness.

This two-door cabinet is a fine example of the synthesis. Against a field of deep black lacquer, chinoiserie scenes unfold in red and burnished gold — pagodas, figures, foliage and birds rendered with the free interpretive hand that distinguishes French chinoiserie from mere imitation. Measuring 88.5 centimetres in width and nearly as tall, the cabinet presents its two decorated panels as luminous compositions framed by the clean architectural lines of the Art Déco case.

French Art Déco lacquered furniture with chinoiserie decoration holds a distinguished position in the collector market. Combining the pictorial drama of the oriental tradition with the graphic confidence of the interwar period, such pieces engage simultaneously with several collecting interests — Art Déco, orientalism, the art of lacquer — and integrate naturally into period and contemporary interiors alike as statements of rare decorative authority.