Jean Dupas

The Normandie:  Floating Art Deco Palace, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL, January 15-March 28, 1993

Bruno Foucart, et al., Normandie:  Queen of the Seas, New York, 1985, p. 72 (for a cartoon of "The Birth of Aphrodite" mural)

The panels have been remarkably maintained over time and are in very good stable condition. The panels were recently stabilized by Venturella Studio, a professional conservation studio with extensive experience in handling Dupas Normandie panels. All of the original pegamoid cloth backings (a dark red varnished oil cloth) are intact on the reverse side of each panel. There are a few isolated instances of minor separation and lifting to the cloth backings on a few of the panels along the top few inches of the top and bottom borders, with a few small and minor associated losses to the reverse pigment. To stabilize these areas, paper has been sensitively wrapped and taped over the original backing. On the top row of panels, second in from the left side, there are losses to the reverse pigment along the bottom border of the panel from the backing separating from the glass (visible in the catalogue illustration). This area would benefit from more sensitive conservation. On the top row of panels, second in from the right side, there is a diagonal crack to the glass extending inward from the lower right corner, approximately 9 inches long. On the bottom row of panels, second in from the right side, there is a small crack (2 ½ inches long) extending upward from the lower right corner. Both of these cracks have been stabilized with Hxtal epoxy (a two-part archival epoxy that reduces light refraction in glass and does not discolor over time). There are several small and minor edge chips and surface flecks located at the corners of the various panels. A few of the corners with slightly larger edge chips were recently stabilized and patched with Hxtal. On the top row, central panel, there is a shallow edge loss along the lower left side border (just above the corner) which is approximately 3 ½ x ¼ inch. The reverse gilt, silvered and painted decoration is in remarkably good condition throughout, showing some occasional minor imperfections, discoloration, and small minor losses consistent with age. Please note that the six brackets which accompany these panels are gilt plastic (not bronze). One of the smaller side brackets is cracked and stabilized with epoxy. The panels will require additional custom mounting hardware in order to be stabilized to a wall. The panels display beautifully in person, and their presentation is incredibly impressive. The gilding and silvering on each panel is incredibly vibrant and luminescent, and the panels display greater consistency in color than seen in the catalogue illustration (which required each panel to be photographed individually).
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Normandie's Dupas panels have long been revered as the holy grail for Art Deco and ocean liner collectors alike.

Jean Dupas, son of a Bordeaux sea captain, was asked by the French Line for a composition extolling the delights of Normandy.  Instead, the artist created A History of Navigation, encompassing triremes, dhows, men-o-war and paddle steamers; its lower margins incorporated mythological vignettes conjoined with roiling sea monsters.

A challenging site, Normandie's Grand Salon was cruciform-shaped, broken up by five tall windows on each side.  It could also be allied with the adjoining Smoking Room by sliding doors.  As a result, Dupas was architecturally obliged to break up his oeuvre into four separate, right-angled segments, which he conceived into a series of four thematic murals celebrating "The Birth of Aphrodite," "The Chariot of Poseidon," "The Chariot of Thetis," and the "Rape of Europa."  The four murals offered a continuous glittering scene that blended Classical mythology with a secondary theme of maritime history. 

Rather than painting canvas, Dupas chose to apply paint to the reverse of glass.  An astonishing 32-feet high, his vast murale églomisé derived its name from the eighteenth-century ébéniste Jean-Baptiste Glomy who had perfected the technique for decorating picture frames.  The process is time-consuming and demanding:  highlights, traditionally final adornments, had to precede the layering in of back painting.  Dupas was invaluably assisted by églomisé specialist Charles Champigneulle who enriched the artist's outlines with layers of black, gold and platinum washes.  The finished work was heroic in scale and gloriously luminescent.

Each mural was essentially a mosaic, assembled from dozens of glass panels, anchored by bronze brackets at their corners.  That composite form was, in a sense, the mural's salvation, in that the completed work could not only be removed piecemeal from Normandie before her fatal February 1942 fire but could also be dispersed in small, separate consignments.  Whereas some collectors content themselves with single, isolated panels, the ten in the present lot enjoy the irreplaceable advantage of pictorial contiguity.  Originating from the mural's topmost level, masts, rigging, bellying sails and fluttering pennants of a seventeenth-century warship are juxtaposed against a lowering Breton sky.

The largest collection of Dupas panels extant was donated to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, preserving for posterity an entire corner of Normandie's Grand Salon.  Recently, museum preservationists had to reinvigorate the eroding adhesion of paint to glass; new fixatives were devised and applied that would not obscure the Dupas/Champigneulle mise-en-scêne.  The ten panels offered here remain in prime condition.

-John Maxtone-Graham, New York maritime historian and author of Normandie:  France's Legendary Art Deco Ocean Liner