MAY 24, 2016 - 6PM

Serrurier-Bovy,
from a collection ll
Rare ensemble of the
Art Nouveau maestro

VIEWING
May 19, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm
May 20, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm
May 21, 2016 from 11 am to 7 pm
May 23, 2016 from 10 am to 7 pm
May 24, 2016 from 10 am to 12 am

PIASA
118 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris - France

PRESS & COMMUNICATION

Cécile Demtchenko Woringer
T +33 1 53 34 12 95 - M +33 6 22 16 85 96
c.demtchenko@piasa.fr

Press release
On Tuesday 24 May 2016 PIASA will stage the second sale of a
collection devoted to Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910) - the most
creative Belgian designer of his generation.

The exceptional ensemble, including works of historic importance

and museum quality, was assembled over thirty years ago by an Art
Nouveau devotee, and reflects the creative intelligence of Serrurier-
Bovy and his undeniable influence on 20th century furniture.

The first sale, offering new insight on the Art Nouveau maestro,
enjoyed great success at Piasa in May 2015.

Art Nouveau - Towards Modernity

Gustave Serrurier-Bovy was an architect , designer and industrialist who became one
of Belgium’s leading exponents of Art Nouveau and a precursor of the modern Design
movement. His concern for industrial aesthetics made him a stylistic trendsetter.

Serrurier was the son of a woodwork entrepreneur, and combined his school studies
in Liège with lessons at the local Ecole des Beaux-Arts. On a trip to London he fell in
love with the new approach to lifestyle inspired by William Morris and his disiples.

Back in Belgium he decided to devote himself to interior design and in 1884, after
marrying Maria Bovy, founded the firm Serrurier-Bovy in Liège. Its initial activity
involved importing furniture and decorative elements from Britain and Japan.
Serrurier adopted a new sales approach by fitting out his shops in Belgium and
France to resemble rooms in a private home. He became convinced of the need to
link architecture with the decorative arts, and soon moved on to Design. L’Aube, the
masterful villa he built comfort allied to robust construction.

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 « Serrurier was not confined to a single style, however novel, but constantly renewed his
approach and his vision of things’. »
(Jacques-Grégoire Watelet)

Furniture & Architecture : An All-Embracing Concept

From 1903-05 Serrurier worked with the architect René Dulong to enlarge and
refurnish the Château de la Cheyrelle in Auvergne, built in the late 1850s. The result
was the world’s ‘only complete example of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy’s innovative
principles’ (to quote the Monuments Historiques - France’s national heritage agency).

The first-floor bedrooms were furnished with Serrurier’s landmark Silex suite,
originally designed for a competition to furnish low-cost dwellings in Cointe (a
district of Liège) as part of the city’s 1905 Exposition Universelle, and embodying
the most innovative aspect of his work, overladen with pioneering minimalism.
By inventing mobilier à joints (a system based on assembling individual units), he
helped make quality furniture available to the public at large, using cheaper woods
(like poplar or pine) enhanced with stencil patterning, exploding the barriers of an
art destined for certain social classes. Serrurier demonstrated that his Silex furniture,
with its coloured screws (left visible), could enliven both bourgeois and working-
class interiors.

Another of Gustave Serrurier-Bovy’s most original ensembles was designed for the
Villa Ortiz Basualdo in Mar de Plata (Argentina), built for Don Luis de Ortiz Basualdo
by architect Louis Dubois in 1909. A painted version of the Silex series was chosen
to furnish the villa; the chair-backs, and metal-ringed bases adorned with screws,
differed from the originals. This superb and highly original series was produced in
very limited numbers. Along with a Silex wardrobe (est. €15,000-20,000) two seats
from the series will be offered at PIASA (est. €4,000-6,000 a piece). The original
spirit is still present, but here upholstered in green – the colour of what the Pre-
Raphaelite poet Algernon Charles Swinburne called ‘glad grass.’

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Serrurier-Bovy also produced such innovative furniture as his revolutionary Gamma
revolving bookcase, which he patented in 1904. A mahogany, brass and glass Gamma
bookcase, with four doors opened by the same key, is one of the highlights of the
sale (est. 12,000-18,000), along with an oak and brass Moulin wall-clock – a work of
amazing ingenuity and pioneering technical perfection (est. €15,000-18,000).

‘He always shows the need to respond correctly to a way of life – and with artistic skill. His
passionate search for modern furniture produced works of value at every step, based on
personality and on a sense of a new type of beauty adapted to the contemporary era.’
(Jacques-Grégoire Watelet)

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Silex
Chaise
Bois peint vert et métal
Date de création : 1906
H 92 x L 40 x P 40 cm
4 000 / 6 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910)
Silex
Armoire
Bois blanc peint, fer et miroir
Date de création : vers 1910
H 205 x L 100 x P 51 cm
15 000 / 20 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Buffet
Acajou, laiton et miroir
Date de création : 1901
H 146 x L 182 x P 53 cm
4 000 / 6 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910)
Papillon
Paire de fauteuils
Chêne et cannage
Date de création : 1895
H 102 x L 60 x P 50 cm
4 000 / 6 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910)
Buffet
Acajou, peinture sur bois et laiton
Date de création : 1906
H 206,5 x L 180,5 x P 54 cm
10 000 / 15 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier- Bovy (1858-1910)
Silex
Coiffeuse
Peuplier et fer
Date de création : 1904
H 144 x L 86 x P 52 cm
4 000 / 6 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Moulin
Pendule
Chêne, laiton, fer peint, verre bleu et rouge
Date de création : 1905
H 69 x L 30 x P 27 cm
15 000 / 18 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Gamma
Bibliothèque
Acajou, laiton et verre
Date de création :1904
H 114,5 x L 62 x P 62 cm
12 000 / 18 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Campagne
Dressoir
Chêne vernissé et fer
Date de création : 1902
H 130 × L 119 ×P 57 cm
4 000 / 6 000 €

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Gustave Serrurier-Bovy (1858-1910)
Casier à musique
Padouk et laiton
Date de création : 1904
H 91 × L 35 × P 32 cm
8 000 / 12 000 €

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Design department
Éléonore Floret
Goulven Le Morvan

François Epin
Johanna Colombatti
Alix de Saint-Hilaire

www.piasa.fr

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