Style Art Deco / Ref.10752

Exceptional Art Deco console table in Carrara marble for the Toubiana Hotel built by Charles ADDA, circa 1930

This Art Deco console table in Carrara marble was made around 1930. It comes from the Toubiana Hotel in Boulogne Billancourt (Paris area) built between 1928 and 1930 for which Toubiana appealed to the Deauville competition winning team in 1921: the renowed architect Charles Adda, the ceramists Eugène Bourdet and Alphonse Gentil as well as the art metalworker Marcel Bergue.

This console table is eminently modern and is conform with the Art Deco aesthetic : its decor is pure, its line is straight and its forms are geometric. A certain stiffness emanates from this imposant console, whose style is taken away from the Art Nouveau fantasies. Art deco first appeared in France just before World War I. The Art Deco height was during the 1920s, especially during the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, from April to October 1925. Art Deco artists wanted to break with tradition and Art Nouveau : elegance and sobriety, now synonymous with comfort and modernity, are the watchwords. Moreover, the marble and the imposing structure are reminiscent of religious altars, which gives it solemnity and sacredness. Subtly veined, the Carrara marble is surely one of the most precious and luxurious marbles. This material has been favored in the Hotel Toubiana: monumental pieces, such as stairs and fireplaces, are made out of marble. Furtheremore, the shape of the feet are inspired by Egypt which is an Art Deco recurrent inspiration : a wave of Egyptomania left its mark on design, furniture and architecture during the 1920s as a result of the discovery of the pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

Charles Adda was the student of Victor Laloux, the Orsay station architect, at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. Thanks to him, Charles Adda met the renowed architect Ernest Sanson and assisted with the construction of the Palais Rose for Boni de Castellane and his wife Anna Gould. From then on, Charles Adda worked for a clientele of fortunate clients, notably in the west of Paris, for example Countess Greffulhe, duc de Gramont and the art dealer Georges Bernheim. He became the Société d’Encouragement des Champs de course architect, within he created for example the reinforced concrete tribun for the Longchamp Racecourse. Charles Adda, who was following the architecture codes of his time both classic and modern, is part of Art Deco and the Hotel Toubiana, total work of art, is representative of it.