Hermès, Spur Ashtray, Dupré-lafon Model, 20th Century

Silver metal, stitched leather. Removable inner cup. Circa 1940-1950. Signed Hermès Paris. Good condition. Dimensions: 13 x 8 cm H: 5 cm In 1923, he established himself in Paris as an architect and decorator. The furniture from his beginnings is marked by an austere and bourgeois Art Deco style in the style of the decorator Jules Leleu. In 1929, he was responsible for decoration work for a private mansion overlooking Parc Monceau. This immense project, one of the most important private decoration programs of the time, will be decisive in the career of Paul Dupré-Lafon. The whole shows the work of an accomplished decorator, mastering his subject with rare finesse. The technical details, screws and bolts, are not hidden but clearly displayed like so many ornaments and treated in noble materials. The doctrine of functionalism, which the avant-garde wants to impose as the ethics of decoration, is approached by Dupré-Lafon as the style of the contemporary world. The simplicity of Dupré-Lafon's furniture hides the great refinement and sophistication of the choice and work of materials. He rather favors noble materials and retains from the Art Deco era an attachment to natural materials such as parchment and leather. The success of the Parc Monceau mansion attracted a prestigious and wealthy clientele which earned him the title “architect of millionaires”. Mainly requested for luxurious and large projects, he continues in this direction of a synthesis of the modern trend and the French tradition, enriching it with new materials and multiplying the combinations.