Offered by MAK Galerie
REQUEST INFORMATION
Steel, gilded bronze, brocaded fabric
Set: L. 120 cm + 60 cm + 110 cm
Provenance
Made to order and acquired from Diffusion Maria Pergay,
Paris, November 28, 2013
MARIA PERGAY
(Born in Chisinau, Moldavia, in 1930)
After making a name for herself as a set designer for Dior and Hermès boutiques in the '50s, Maria Pergay opened her own boutique on Place des Vosges. Pierre Cardin supported her creations, becoming her principal patron in 1968.
The woman now known as "the queen of steel" nurtured a fascination for ancient decorative arts from outside Europe. She also incorporated high-quality Chinese and Japanese lacquer panels into her furniture, as in the pair of corner pieces shown here (see N° 50). From the late 1970s onwards, she received commissions from all over the world. Her first commissions were to furnish the sumptuous homes of Middle Eastern princes, whose marble furniture remained her favorite (fig. 1).
The early 2000s marked a turning point in her artistic production. Represented in the United States by New York galleries Demish Danant and Lehmann Maupin, Maria Pergay developed a more naturalistic vocabulary, evident in her use of precious woods and the creation of bronze trees (fig. 2). The one presented here, commissioned for a Venetian palace, was the prelude to the "Secret Garden" exhibition (see N° 49).
