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Lot Essay
Etienne Drian was an artist and fashion illustrator active in France during the 1920s and '30s. The elongated forms of his chic female figures perfectly exemplified the sophisticated and refined fashions of the era and could be found in magazines such as the Gazette du Bon Temps.
Paris in the 1920s was fascinated with jazz music, which was seen as a new and distinctly American form of music. Drian's striking mirrored screen represents five jazz musicians exuberantly playing their instruments. Included in the band is the famous drummer Buddy Gilmore, who played in La Revue Négre in Paris and other popular venues of the time. The figure of Gilmore is copied from a work by photographer Berenice Abbott, who did a series of portraits of artists in Paris in the 1920s.
Another screen of this design was executed for the music room of the famed palace of the Maharaja of Indore. The present example is likely from the New York apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Bradford Norman, Jr., who decorated their home with zebra-upholstered furniture and two grand pianos for impromptu concerts. In 1963, the screen was featured in the home of fashion designer John Moore in a layout in Life magazine. By the 1970s, the screen had moved to the New York apartment of antiques dealer Christopher Chodoff, where it was published in a 1977 Architectural Digest article.
Paris in the 1920s was fascinated with jazz music, which was seen as a new and distinctly American form of music. Drian's striking mirrored screen represents five jazz musicians exuberantly playing their instruments. Included in the band is the famous drummer Buddy Gilmore, who played in La Revue Négre in Paris and other popular venues of the time. The figure of Gilmore is copied from a work by photographer Berenice Abbott, who did a series of portraits of artists in Paris in the 1920s.
Another screen of this design was executed for the music room of the famed palace of the Maharaja of Indore. The present example is likely from the New York apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Bradford Norman, Jr., who decorated their home with zebra-upholstered furniture and two grand pianos for impromptu concerts. In 1963, the screen was featured in the home of fashion designer John Moore in a layout in Life magazine. By the 1970s, the screen had moved to the New York apartment of antiques dealer Christopher Chodoff, where it was published in a 1977 Architectural Digest article.