Alexander Borisovich Serebriakoff

signed and dated A. Serebriakoff 1948 lower left

Christie's London, November 17, 1994, lot 159, illustrated

Colors are bright and fresh. Work is affixed to mat board with two paper hinges along top edge.
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The celebrated antiquaire and interior decorator Madame Madeleine Castaing (1894-1992) is recognized for her embrace of eighteenth and nineteenth century style mixed with a highly personal, eclectic twentieth century point of view.  From 1947 many of the treasures she found came from Paris' famous flea markets and were daringly displayed along with pieces of more noble provenance in her Paris shop on the corner of rue Jacob and rue Bonaparte (now the home of Ladurée and its famous macaroons).  Reflecting the design of her homes, in her shop Madame Castaing created room-like vignettes where finely lacquered tables were set with rougher-made objects of horn or iron and textiles and paint came from her trademark color palette of black, white, rich red, and "Castaing blue" (a light green-blue shade).  Widely known as an arbiter of taste,  Madame Castaing had a cosmopolitan group of clients and friends including Chaim Soutine (whose 1929 portrait of Madame Castaing is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Marc Chagall, and Amedeo Modigliani.  Serebriakoff travelled in the same circles and shared similar aesthetic sensibilities making Madame Castaing's stand at the 1948 Salon des Antiquaires an ideal subject to paint.  Though completed in a relatively early period in Madame Castaing's design development, the present work clearly captures what made her aesthetic so unique and why it has had such lasting influence.   Ironically, the stand may have looked much the same at the opening of the Salon as when it closed – not because patrons did not want to buy the beautiful objects but because Madame Castaing had such difficulty parting with the things she loved best.