Antique French Art Deco Mahogany Sideboard Cabinet by Andre Sornay

Description

This truly exceptional Art Deco wooden sideboard or bar cabinet was designed by Andre Sornay (attr.) in France circa 1930. … more This truly exceptional Art Deco wooden sideboard or bar cabinet was designed by Andre Sornay (attr.) in France circa 1930. Andre Sornay has come to be highly appreciated for his unique approach to early 20th century modernist and Art Deco design combining elegance and function and producing innovations in materials and fabrication. His pieces are masterfully proportioned with a careful and distinctive balance of form. The cabinet is a prime example. It is expertly handcrafted from mahogany wood with beautiful grain and features a simple, streamlined modernist design with clean, geometric lines. The cabinet has three tall locking doors that open on interior storage space with one adjustable and removable shelf in each section. The doors feature distinctive, large, round wooden door handles and two working keys are included. This highly collectible and versatile cabinet with its unique proportion can be used as a sideboard credenza, bar cabinet, storage cabinet, media console, etc. The perfect showpiece for home or office.

Andre Sornay
Although he has in the past been among the least known of the French Art Deco furniture designers of his era, André Sornay introduced innovative fabrication techniques and a unique decorative style to his modernist seating, case pieces and other creations. Sornay was born in Lyon in 1902. In the early 1920s — inspired by the Bauhaus and De Stijl as well as his friends and fellow French avant-garde designers Francis Jourdain and Pierre Chareau — Sornay shifted his design focus from period reproductions to creating contemporary designs.

Sornay’s work fused tradition with modernism. He preferred to work with metals, exotic woods such as mahogany and rosewood, rubber and Duco lacquer. Sornay’s pieces featured sleek brass drawer pulls and sharp, geometric lines, and the distinctive mode that he worked in was known throughout Lyon as “Le Style Sornay.” Sornay was also recognized for his inventive design methods that were not only decorative but functional. In 1932, he patented the cloudage technique — studding the perimeter of veneered furniture panels with uniform brass nails. In the early 1950s, he also patented a technique called the “Tigette,” which allowed for quick and easy assembly or disassembly of modular furniture — a forerunner to IKEA’s flat-packed furniture.

While Sornay isn’t as well known as other European modernists like Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand, he attracted modest attention at exhibitions of the day, such as the 1923 Salon d’Automne and the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, the design fair that brought the Art Deco style to the world. less