1. Maryam Jalali
French Decorative Arts, 1850-1925
Anne-Marie Quette
Édouard Colonna Settee and Chair, ca. 1899
ARTH 640 007
Fall 2013
Made by the L’Art Nouveau workshop in Paris (1898-1904) in 1899, this settee
and chair were made in the Style Modern or Style Mille Neuf-Cent, amongst its many
names. It was made for Paris’ Exposition Universelle’s Art Nouveau Bing wing in 1900,
as part of a complete salon designed by Édouard Colonna. The general structure of the set
is made of maple wood, rendered elegant with elongated smooth curving lines in shape of
a ‘bergère’, a chair most suited for cold weather. Whereas the chair only has a motif on
its top rail, the settee’s both bottom and top boasts finely carved whiplash motifs that
extend into a sinuous line in relief that frames the structure, going round the handles and
legs, a motif indicative of the Art Nouveau style. The chair is 98.43 x 60.96 x 53.34 cm.
and the settee is 99.70 x 113.67 x 53.34 cm. and comes to be known as the “Modèl
Colonna”, bequeathed to the Virginia Museum of Modern Art by Sydney and Frances
Lewis in 1985.1
In design of decorative arts, the progress of Art Nouveau was most notably found
in the field of wooden furniture, where designers and craftsmen broke away from
historical styles to create ‘new art’ that reinforced their will in abandoning forms from the
past.2
Designers got inspiration from nature, which was considered the de facto repertoire
for perfection. As shown on the Colonna piece there is but a hint of engraving in shape of
naturalistic vines and tendrils, and by elongating wood and blending in common motifs

2. designers sought to make the furniture fit in the room, as if the piece had been molded out
of its surrounding.3
It almost feels as if the piece’s focal point starts from the mid-section of the chair
and grows outwards bringing this piece into being. The eyes are drawn to the cape like
design that makes up the back of the piece, its almost as if the chair is inviting you to be
enveloped by it in a very comfortable manner. Not only does the velvet textile cover the
padded back and seats, but also the outside surface of the sides and the back. The slender
legs of the chair look strong enough for the purpose of it being used regularly in a sitting
room and the velvet upholstery, which is kept in place by nails, yet again correspond with
the idea of the pieces being suitable for winter time.
Maple wood is mostly found in North America and Europe, where there are great
variations in the character and quality of the wood from differing species, but it is
generally pale brownish white, hard and compact, fairly heavy and strong, and lustrous,
with a fine, straight grain. It is used for kitchen implements such as: plywood, furniture,
cooperage, turnery and joinery. Well-figured examples such as Birdseye maple are used
as veneers.4
The velvet upholstery seems to have been changed from its original floral one
depicted in fig. 2, a photograph taken from the L’Art Nouveau Bing salon at the
Exposition Universelle of 1900. Although the upholstery is different, it still conforms to
the original pastel colored palette favored by this movement.
Edouard Colonna (1862-1948), was born near the city of Cologne in Germany, he
later moved to Brussels where he finished his studies in the field of architecture. Shortly

3. after he moved to New York in 1882 and started work at Tiffany’s Associated Artist for a
short time before moving to Ohio to design railroad cars for Barney & Smith Company.
He moved to Paris via Canada in 1898 and started designing jewelry, furniture, fabrics
and porcelain for Siegfried Bing’s Art Nouveau gallery.5
This style is always followed by Siegfried/Samuel Bing’s name, a German art
connoisseur and businessman who unintentionally established the name of the movement
after his art gallery the Maison de L’ Art Nouveau and dedicated his whole collection to
the new style of the 1900. Bing’s artists were all important contributors to Art Nouveau,
designs of entire rooms and their accessories by de Feure, Gaillard, Colonna,
Selmersheim, and Plumet were produced in Bing’s workshops to be sold later in his
gallery.6
Bing’s affiliation in this field has long connected France to the industrial
awakening of Europe; as of 1850, he had been introduced to the world of creative design,
where his family’s business made Bing aware of art and industry working in harmony.7
He frequently expressed his disbelief of how his generation hadn’t yet created a
style of their own – he wrote,
“ Amidst this universal upheaval of scientific discoveries the decoration of
the day continued to be copied from what was in Vogue in previous centuries,
when different habits and different masters were current. What an astonishing
anachronism!”8
Bing traveled extensively before settling down in Paris and the opening of his shop,
dedicated to the arts of the Far East. He was active as an Art Nouveau entrepreneur as of
1884, where he participated in an exhibition at the Union Central des Arts Décorative.9
Colonna’s room for Bing’s Art Nouveau wing contained a display of
sophisticated fabrics such as carpets, embroidered trimmings, and upholstery made for

4. Bing by the best European weaving centers.10
A few of Colonna’s designs were single-
colored textiles with watered grounds, producing a secondary layer of motif, similar to
patterns found in his other designs for other media, such as the opalescence in glass and
wood inlays in furniture – a result of a likely discussion between Colonna, the
manufacturer and Bing.11
Amongst the shapes Colonna favored most for textile was the ‘ogee’, a double
curve with the shape of an elongated S, originally a motif from the Middle East.
Although many artists used this motif without knowing its origin and influence, Colonna
had worked for Tiffany in 1882-83 and had definitely been familiar with Islamic art; this
influence is readily apparent by the arabesque motifs he designed for furniture before his
move from Canada.12
Many textile manufacturers were wary of these modern designs and
carried on with some level of conservatism; the end result was extremely pleasing for the
customers since they retained their traditional forms of weaving and incorporated new
designs, which proved to be well suited for the architectural and interior projects of artists
such as Edouard Colonna, Eugen Gaillard, and George De Feur (fig. 3).13
Colonna and De Feure come to be considered as very important designers for Art
Nouveau textiles in particular, yet not much of their work has survived and can only be
seen through photographs of that period and by one or two individual decorative
schemes, formerly owned by Bing.14
The salon made by Colonna carried some very innovative pieces of furniture such
as a bibelot that consisted of a shelved display case used for curiose, a sellette, an
elongated and thin looking four legged structure used to place a lamp or plant upon, and a

5. casier musique, which contained a vinyl record player and later a radio. Although the
utilitarian use of the pieces were very modern, Colonna relied on ancien régime forms, as
depicted in the Louis XV forms that the settee and chair take.15
The room was
represented as a fully furnished room, complete with wallpaper and frames decorating the
walls, lamps, and porcelain as seen in (fig. 2, 4). According to an Art Nouveau article
from the Museum of Modern Art in New York:
“ The special pavilion, “Art Nouveau Bing” at the Paris Exposition
Universelle of 1900, stressed the work of Colonna, De Feure, and Baillard, and
though less epoch-making, showed a refined taste which seemed lacking in most
exhibits.”16
Bing’s infatuation with displaying rooms at exhibitions started in 1896, when he
introduced Van de Velde to Paris by asking him to send four thoroughly designed rooms
to the firm.17
The decorative arts best reflect the Art Nouveau movement, also referred to as an
anti-historicism or anti-movement, although called as such, it still took inspiration from
the Gothic and Rocaille and created architectural and interior accomplishments where
line and space took on a vital role in displaying forms from nature. Also important is the
fact that this period relied on technological advancements in the field of machinery to
create new designs, “without, however, elevating functionalism to an esthetic
principle”.18
Even though this style started off with much hype, during a time of
prosperity, a time when the Paris Metro has just opened, and a time of modernism, it
didn’t take very long for it to die out. With all the arduous works that Art Nouveau artists
did they didn’t get the chance to be regarded as high as they are today. They paved the

6. way for the rest of the 20th
century artists by reminding them the importance of novelty
along a continuing road of creativity.

7. 1
Martin Eidelberg, E. Colonna (Dayton, Ohio: Dayton Art Institute, 1983), 50.
2
Lara-Vinca Masini, Art Nouveau (New Jersey: Patrick Hawkey & Co. Ltd., 1984), 84.
3
Peter Selz and Mildred Constantine eds., Art Nouveau: Art and Design at the Turn of
the Century, (N.Y.: Museum of Modern Art, 1975), 16.
4
Lucy Trench ed., Materials and Techniques in the Decorative Arts An Illustrated
Dictionary (London: John Murray Publishers Ltd., 2000), 300.
5
Simon Jervis, Dictionary of Design and Designers (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.,
1984), 123.
6
Selz, Art Nouveau: Art and Design at the Turn of the Century, 101.
7
Gabriel Weisberg, “Notes on the History of Art, Vol. 3.” Bing’s Craftsmen Workshops:
A location and Importance Revealed, no.1 (Fall 1983): 43,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202368 (accessed Oct. 15, 2013).
8
Selz, Art Nouveau:Art and Design at the Turn of the Century, 11.
9
Masini, Art Nouveau, 85.
10
Paul Greenhalgh ed., Art Nouveau :1890-1914 (London: V&A: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Publishers, 2000), 184.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 119.
13
Ibid., 183.
14
Ibid., 184.
15
Eidelberg, E. Colonna, 50.
16
Selz, Art Nouveau:Art and Design at the Turn of the Century, 11.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid., 12.

8. fig.1: Settee and Chair, 1899, 85.139.1-2 Jpg,
http://www.vmfa.state.va.us/Collections/Art_Deco__amp;__Art_Nouveau/COLONNA_8
5_139_1-2.aspx: (accessed Nov. 3, 2013).
fig. 2: Colonna, Sitting Room, Art Nouveau Pavilion, 1900 Jpg,
http://quizlet.com/27776921/arth-5454-art-nouveau-midterm-flash-cards/: (accessed Nov.
3, 2013).

9. fig. 3: Curtain, 1900 T.357- 1990 Jpg, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O69617/curtain-
colonna-edouard/ : (accessed Nov. 3, 2013).
fig.4: Colonna, Furniture for the Sitting Room, Art Nouveau Pavilion, 1900
http://quizlet.com/27776921/arth-5454-art-nouveau-midterm-flash-cards/: (accessed Nov.
3, 2013).

10. Bibliography:
Eidelberg, Martin. E. Colonna. Dayton, Ohio: Dayton Art Institute, 1983.
Greenhalgh, Paul ed.. Art Nouveau :1890-1914. London: V&A: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Publishers, 2000.
Jervis, Simon. Dictionary of Design and Designers. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.,
1984.
Masini, Lara-Vinca. Art Nouveau. New Jersey: Patrick Hawkey & Co. Ltd., 1984.
Selz, Peter and Mildred Constantine eds.. Art Nouveau: Art and Design at the Turn of
the Century. N.Y.: Museum of Modern Art, 1975.
Trench, Lucy, ed. Materials and Techniques in the Decorative Arts An Illustrated
Dictionary. London: John Murray Publishers Ltd., 2000.
Weisberg, Gabriel. “Notes on the History of Art, Vol. 3.”, Bing’s Craftsmen Workshops:
A location and Importance Revealed, no.1 (Fall 1983): 43,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202368 (accessed Oct. 15, 2013).