Jean-Michel Frank

This lot is offered together with a certificate of authenticity from the Comité Jean-Michel Frank.

The present center table by Jean-Michel Frank hails from the famed 1938 commission for Nelson Rockefeller, legendary American politician, collector and patron of the arts. In the 1930s, when Rockefeller called upon Jean-Michel Frank to decorate a floor in his three-story apartment on Fifth Avenue, the interior designer was already widely celebrated as the incontestable choice for the homes of the Parisian well-to-do elite. Rockefeller aspired to situate himself as a political patron who championed the arts in a vein akin to that of the Medicis of 15th-century Florence. He was a ravenous collector with an affinity for paintings by the Abstract Expressionists of New York and the emerging Parisian art scene, ceramics from all across Asia, African sculptures, and Central American folk art objects. He wanted this home, where he and his wife Happy lived, to reflect their insatiable passion for art of all kinds and the modernist approach that guided their collecting. A true collaboration between two aesthetes, Jean-Michel Frank and Nelson Rockefeller, this commission would lead not only to their friendship, but also to one of the most iconic American interiors of the 20th century.

Jean-Michel Frank designed this table in 1939, and it was subsequently executed by Chanaux & Company in France. Constructed in oak with a Turquin blue marble top and a delicate use of line, this center table epitomizes the simplified elegance of Frank’s oeuvre. Not only is it an embodiment of the evolution of the Parisian Art Deco style, but it is also steeped in the rich history of American politics. Eighty years after traversing the Atlantic Ocean on a steamship to arrive at 810 5th Avenue, this table stands as a testament to the significance of the Rockefeller commission in 20th century decorative arts.