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HEINRICH KIEPERT TABLE GLOBE, LAST QUARTER OF

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:50,000.00 - 70,000.00 USD
HEINRICH KIEPERT TABLE GLOBE, LAST QUARTER OF
HEINRICH KIEPERT TABLE GLOBE, LAST QUARTER OF THE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURY mounted on an exceptional bronze, artist unknown 21in. (53.3 cm) diameter of globe 32 in. (81.3 cm) high 281/4 in. (71.7 cm) diameter of base Estimate: $50,000-$70,000 Provenance Collection of Anne-Sophie Duval, Paris THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: SERGE ROCHE In the early 1930s, while many French designers were striving to create Modernist interiors and furnishings in tune with the industrial era, Serge Roche (1898-1988) looked to the 17th century in an effort to make sumptuous and elaborate decorations. His love of the Baroque, coupled with a fascination with mirrors, led him to produce a wide variety of mirrored furnishings and decorations, among them this opulent octagonal masterpiece. Roche had a vast collection of antique mirrors and frames that served in part as inspiration for his own designs. In 1931, in collaboration with the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Société des Amis de Versailles, he organized an exhibition of 15th to 20th-century European frames at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. Amidst the 827 pieces noted in that exhibition catalogue, Roche included nine frames of his own design, four of which were mirrored. From that point on, he worked extensively with mirrors, using them in every aspect of his lavish interior designs, at times in combination with his more Rococo plaster consoles, torchères, sconces, and table lamps. He produced mirrored tables, commodes, consoles and objets d'art, including obelisks and a multi-faceted mirrored urn topped with a plaster flame which were featured in a 1934 issue of L'Amour de l'Art. His work was on view at his own gallery, and pre-eminent interior decorators such as Elsie de Wolfe in New York and Syrie Maugham in London exhibited many Roche pieces. His own home, illustrated in L'Amour de l'Art as a prime example of a Baroque-style interior, featured an imposing mirrored fireplace and other mirrored furnishings. Roche became to be so associated with Baroque-style mirrors that Jean Cocteau borrowed a small table-top looking glass to serve as the magical eye into the outside world in his renowned 1946 production of Beauty and the Beast. Roche's obsession culminated in 1951 with his publication of Miroirs: Galeries et Cabinets de Glaces, a detailed and well-illustrated history of the mirror and its mystical, cultural, and psychological connotations.