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Lot Essay
Other examples of this poster are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (inv. no. 288.1935) and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. E.648-2017).
MIOTTEL MUSEUM
A Collectors' Story
"If there's a better or more lovingly displayed collection of S.S. Normandie material in the world (and that includes France), I don't know of it. What Crash has assembled here is nothing less than the history of a legend. For people interested in transatlantic shipping in general and the Normandie in particular, it is the mother lode."
– Harvey Ardman, Author: “NORMANDIE HER LIFE AND TIMES”
In the evolution of the ocean liner, the ultimate state of the art is generally conceded to have been the SS Normandie. In fact, the Normandie was recently selected as ‘Ocean Liner of the Century’ by International vote conducted under the auspices of the Ocean Liner Society.
From the Normandie record breaking maiden voyage in June 1935 until her final westbound crossing to New York on the eve of World War II, in August 1939, the 80,000 ton SSN served as an ultra-glamorous floating showcase for French art, culture, cuisine and technical prowess. The glorious career and tragic fate of this nautical paradigm constitute a telling metaphor for its era.
The Miottel Museum has the largest and most comprehensive aggregation of the Normandie-related items in the world, everything from maiden voyage postage stamps to the stunning bronze and ebony Gaveau grand piano from its fabled Café Grill.
Think champagne, caviar and dancing till dawn. Think of intimate performances by Joséphine Baker, and Marlene Dietrich. Visualize your fellow passengers Jimmy Stewart, Maurice Chevalier, Toscanini or Gable and Lombard there at the next table.
And the great liner knifes through the midnight sea.
– John Miottel, founder of the Miottel Museum, Berkeley, California.
John Miottel was one of the first Navy pilots to fly the F8U-1 Crusader. Flying at one thousand miles per hour, this new type of pilot had to learn to deal with this new and precarious technology, the experience of which has often been compared to "racing with the moon.” John was the first pilot in the US Navy Fleet to carrier qualify in a supersonic jet. He also survived two horrendous aircraft crashes that earned him the nickname "Crash".
Fascinated by ocean liners since his early childhood and an avid collector, he assembled over decades one of the most comprehensive groups of objects and memorabilia from the Normandie in the world, including highlights by Jean Dupas, Jean Dunand and Edgar Brandt, which Christie’s is honored to present at auction this season.
A MAGNIFICENT VOYAGE
The S.S. Normandie
The largest, fastest and most elaborately-decorated ocean liner of its day, the S.S. Normandie was described in marketing material produced for the ship's launch in 1935 as an “homage from France to America”. French press compared its size to the Eiffel Tower, while American reports described it in terms of the Empire State Building. Able to cross the Atlantic at record speeds and duly awarded the prestigious Blue Riband several times, the Normandie was not only a powerful representation of French industrial prestige, but also a symbol of national arts, design and technology, and, importantly, of French culture and tradition. If its exterior was impressive, its interior was a “floating museum”, intended to introduce all its passengers to the quality of French craftmanship. The most important designers of the time, such as Jean Dunand, René Lalique, Jean Dupas, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Pierre Patout, among others, contributed to the ship elegant environment, decorating the first class cabins and public rooms in the best Art Deco style.
Having left from Le Havre, the Normandie made its final voyage to New York in 1939 and remained there due to war-time conditions. In December 1941, the United States government seized the Normandie, stripped it of its decoration and converted the liner to a wartime transport ship to carry American troops. However, in February 1942 while under remodeling, a fire broke out on board. Firefighters doused the ship with so much water that it capsized the next day. Fortunately, the furniture, fixtures and decorations had previously been removed and stored in a warehouse, and were offered at auction in 1942 and 1943.
Carrying almost 2,000 passengers (848 in first class, 670 in tourist and 454 in third), the Normandie gathered considerable media attention at the time, thanks to its glamorous passenger such as Salvador Dali, Colette, James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, and with its spectacular interiors. The grandest of the ship's salons were decorated with an attention to materials that consciously recalled the regal sumptuousness of the Château de Versailles interiors. The Grand Salon, distinguished by its impressive 32-foot high ceilings and cruciform layout, was paneled with verre églomisé murals by Jean Dupas, ornamented with a symbolic gilded blazing mid-day sun stationary over calm waters, provided the showcase for the elegant furnishings designed by Jean Rothschild. The spacious theater, the first ever to appear on an ocean liner, included a full stage. The indoor pool was 80 feet long. The Winter Garden, where passengers and stars were photographed, featured exotic birds and spectacular live greenery. Every cabin was done in a different décor and theme.
Roger-Henri Expert (1882-1955) and Richard Bouwens (1863-1939), the architects for the Normandie, had stipulated that the materials for decorative elements had to be fire resistant, smooth and reflective. These were to include Dunand’s lacquer, glass by Lalique, and of course the spectacular use of verre églomisé by Jean Dupas, who responded with determination to “make something bountiful and splendid”. His mural for the Grand Salon was a total of four hundred meters square, and the artist’s most visible and important commission. To execute them, he enlisted the help of master glasswork artist Jacques-Charles Champigneulle (1907-1955), who translated his drawings into panels that shimmered with gold, silver and platinum, representing four scenes that blended classical mythology with this history of modern navigation: The Birth of Aphrodite, The Chariot of Thetis, The Chariot of Poseidon and The Rape of Europa. As written by Bruno Foucart’s Normandie, Queen of the Sea, ‘these great golden panels have about them a joyousness, a humor and a sophistication that now seem the very embodiment of the 1930s, a between-the-war world that, in the middle of the ocean, could appear like a spectacular interlude between pleasures.” The complexity of the theme, the drama of the composition, and the rich detailing constitute a distinctive French neo-baroque style, modulated by the neo-classical elements that Dupas favored - clarity of line, frontal composition, lack of a receding perspective. The most substantial surviving elements from these superb murals are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
MIOTTEL MUSEUM
A Collectors' Story
"If there's a better or more lovingly displayed collection of S.S. Normandie material in the world (and that includes France), I don't know of it. What Crash has assembled here is nothing less than the history of a legend. For people interested in transatlantic shipping in general and the Normandie in particular, it is the mother lode."
– Harvey Ardman, Author: “NORMANDIE HER LIFE AND TIMES”
In the evolution of the ocean liner, the ultimate state of the art is generally conceded to have been the SS Normandie. In fact, the Normandie was recently selected as ‘Ocean Liner of the Century’ by International vote conducted under the auspices of the Ocean Liner Society.
From the Normandie record breaking maiden voyage in June 1935 until her final westbound crossing to New York on the eve of World War II, in August 1939, the 80,000 ton SSN served as an ultra-glamorous floating showcase for French art, culture, cuisine and technical prowess. The glorious career and tragic fate of this nautical paradigm constitute a telling metaphor for its era.
The Miottel Museum has the largest and most comprehensive aggregation of the Normandie-related items in the world, everything from maiden voyage postage stamps to the stunning bronze and ebony Gaveau grand piano from its fabled Café Grill.
Think champagne, caviar and dancing till dawn. Think of intimate performances by Joséphine Baker, and Marlene Dietrich. Visualize your fellow passengers Jimmy Stewart, Maurice Chevalier, Toscanini or Gable and Lombard there at the next table.
And the great liner knifes through the midnight sea.
– John Miottel, founder of the Miottel Museum, Berkeley, California.
John Miottel was one of the first Navy pilots to fly the F8U-1 Crusader. Flying at one thousand miles per hour, this new type of pilot had to learn to deal with this new and precarious technology, the experience of which has often been compared to "racing with the moon.” John was the first pilot in the US Navy Fleet to carrier qualify in a supersonic jet. He also survived two horrendous aircraft crashes that earned him the nickname "Crash".
Fascinated by ocean liners since his early childhood and an avid collector, he assembled over decades one of the most comprehensive groups of objects and memorabilia from the Normandie in the world, including highlights by Jean Dupas, Jean Dunand and Edgar Brandt, which Christie’s is honored to present at auction this season.
A MAGNIFICENT VOYAGE
The S.S. Normandie
The largest, fastest and most elaborately-decorated ocean liner of its day, the S.S. Normandie was described in marketing material produced for the ship's launch in 1935 as an “homage from France to America”. French press compared its size to the Eiffel Tower, while American reports described it in terms of the Empire State Building. Able to cross the Atlantic at record speeds and duly awarded the prestigious Blue Riband several times, the Normandie was not only a powerful representation of French industrial prestige, but also a symbol of national arts, design and technology, and, importantly, of French culture and tradition. If its exterior was impressive, its interior was a “floating museum”, intended to introduce all its passengers to the quality of French craftmanship. The most important designers of the time, such as Jean Dunand, René Lalique, Jean Dupas, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Pierre Patout, among others, contributed to the ship elegant environment, decorating the first class cabins and public rooms in the best Art Deco style.
Having left from Le Havre, the Normandie made its final voyage to New York in 1939 and remained there due to war-time conditions. In December 1941, the United States government seized the Normandie, stripped it of its decoration and converted the liner to a wartime transport ship to carry American troops. However, in February 1942 while under remodeling, a fire broke out on board. Firefighters doused the ship with so much water that it capsized the next day. Fortunately, the furniture, fixtures and decorations had previously been removed and stored in a warehouse, and were offered at auction in 1942 and 1943.
Carrying almost 2,000 passengers (848 in first class, 670 in tourist and 454 in third), the Normandie gathered considerable media attention at the time, thanks to its glamorous passenger such as Salvador Dali, Colette, James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, and with its spectacular interiors. The grandest of the ship's salons were decorated with an attention to materials that consciously recalled the regal sumptuousness of the Château de Versailles interiors. The Grand Salon, distinguished by its impressive 32-foot high ceilings and cruciform layout, was paneled with verre églomisé murals by Jean Dupas, ornamented with a symbolic gilded blazing mid-day sun stationary over calm waters, provided the showcase for the elegant furnishings designed by Jean Rothschild. The spacious theater, the first ever to appear on an ocean liner, included a full stage. The indoor pool was 80 feet long. The Winter Garden, where passengers and stars were photographed, featured exotic birds and spectacular live greenery. Every cabin was done in a different décor and theme.
Roger-Henri Expert (1882-1955) and Richard Bouwens (1863-1939), the architects for the Normandie, had stipulated that the materials for decorative elements had to be fire resistant, smooth and reflective. These were to include Dunand’s lacquer, glass by Lalique, and of course the spectacular use of verre églomisé by Jean Dupas, who responded with determination to “make something bountiful and splendid”. His mural for the Grand Salon was a total of four hundred meters square, and the artist’s most visible and important commission. To execute them, he enlisted the help of master glasswork artist Jacques-Charles Champigneulle (1907-1955), who translated his drawings into panels that shimmered with gold, silver and platinum, representing four scenes that blended classical mythology with this history of modern navigation: The Birth of Aphrodite, The Chariot of Thetis, The Chariot of Poseidon and The Rape of Europa. As written by Bruno Foucart’s Normandie, Queen of the Sea, ‘these great golden panels have about them a joyousness, a humor and a sophistication that now seem the very embodiment of the 1930s, a between-the-war world that, in the middle of the ocean, could appear like a spectacular interlude between pleasures.” The complexity of the theme, the drama of the composition, and the rich detailing constitute a distinctive French neo-baroque style, modulated by the neo-classical elements that Dupas favored - clarity of line, frontal composition, lack of a receding perspective. The most substantial surviving elements from these superb murals are in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.