Large Coco Chanel Gilt Metal Ears of Wheat Chandelier, 12 Arms, French Work, circa 1970

Among the most immediately recognisable and symbolically charged objects in the history of twentieth-century French decorative arts, the wheat ear chandelier in the manner of Coco Chanel occupies a place of singular distinction. This important example, with its twelve arms of light each terminating in sheaves of finely cast gilt metal wheat, evokes directly the legendary apartment at 31 rue Cambon in Paris, where Gabrielle Chanel — the greatest couturière of the century — surrounded herself with the objects that expressed her personal mythology. The ear of wheat, symbol of abundance, fertility, and the golden plenty of nature, was among her most cherished motifs: it appeared on her chandeliers, her screens, her decorative objects, as a constant reminder of the terrestrial luxuriance that underpinned her aesthetic of supreme, natural elegance.

Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883–1971) was not merely a couturière but a complete creator of a world — a world in which the apartment, the dress, the jewel, and the perfume formed an indissoluble whole. Her apartments at the Ritz and above her maison de couture on the rue Cambon were decorated with an intensity of personal vision that has since become legendary: Coromandel lacquer screens, Venetian mirrors, crystal and bronze objects, and, above all, chandeliers that shed their golden light on evenings of incomparable elegance. The wheat ear chandelier, reproduced and reinterpreted by the finest Parisian workshops throughout the 1960s and 1970s, became the emblem of a certain idea of Parisian grandeur — simultaneously opulent and natural, historical and timelessly modern.

Of generous proportions with twelve gilded arms, this chandelier would impose its golden, abundant presence in any room worthy of receiving it: a dining room, a grand salon, an entrance hall. It brings with it not merely light, but an entire mythology of French elegance — that of a woman who, more than any other, defined what it means to be chic.