Dark Green Saddle-Stitched Leather Letter Rack with Brass, Jacques Adnet Style, c.1950

This refined desktop letter rack combines the two materials most closely associated with the work of Jacques Adnet: dark green saddle-stitched leather and polished brass. A rectangular base of thick dark green leather — its edges trimmed with the characteristic fine cream stitching of the sellier tradition — supports three elegant brass wire frames that divide the piece into compartments for correspondence, documents, or envelopes. The result is an object of precise, disciplined elegance that epitomises the French mid-century approach to the decorative accessories of the writing desk.

Jacques Adnet (1900–1984) was one of the most important French designers of the 20th century, celebrated above all for his mastery of leather and brass in the creation of furniture and decorative objects of austere, aristocratic beauty. As director of the Compagnie des Arts Français from 1928, and later as an independent designer, Adnet developed a vocabulary of forms — the saddle-stitched leather, the polished brass rod, the chamfered corner — that became enormously influential and widely imitated. This letter rack belongs firmly in that tradition, whether produced in Adnet’s own atelier or by one of the many skilled French workshops that worked in his taste.

Desktop accessories of this type — letter racks, blotters, ink stands, pen trays — were an important part of the mid-century luxury market, providing the well-appointed study or office with an ensemble of coordinated pieces in which quality of material and restraint of form were the governing values. The dark green leather, now with a beautiful vintage patina, has aged with particular grace, the depth of colour and the crispness of the stitching fully intact.

A beautiful and functional piece of French mid-century design, in excellent vintage condition. Dimensions: W. 24 × D. 15 × H. 11.5 cm.