Janine Janet Rare Work Mask - France 1950

 Madame Janine Janet (1913-2000) was a sculptor of extraordinary refinement.
Since 1940, she created the most beautiful decorations for the windows of the great fashion houses of that time in Paris, including Balenciaga, Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain, Hermes and Ricci.
Her childhood on the island of Reunion had developed in her a baroque, phantasmagoric imagination and an immense love for Nature. With her technical knowledge she subjected materials such as mother-of-pearl, shells, plants, bark to particular metamorphoses, transforming them into nymphs, fauns, unicorns and other timeless characters that enchanted the public.
Jean Cocteau discovered in her a certain affinity with his own image of her and applied new processes with resin to wall decorations and furniture.
Madame Janine Janet was a sculptor who brought attention to Nature. Her language was mythology, but only a few truly understood the immense richness and the thousand facets of her creative work. Discovering one of her works is a real event due to their rarity. like this faun mask, there deity of the woods. she janine made masks on commission for famous costume parties and this is one of them. it is made with different types of bark, some soft for the more complex shapes. you can see great mastery and ability in choosing the shapes that best suit each point of the same. inside we find the J.Janet signature, a real museum piece for true connoisseurs!! DM private #janinejanet #frenchartist #design #fifty #balenciaga #dior #hermès #mask #masterpiece #antique #frenchdesign #oddities #curious #strange #natureart #artfrance #francedesign #designparis #designweek