Raymond Subes

RAYMOND SUBES (Paris, 1891-Étampes, 1970).
Dining table, 1932.
Marble top.
Wrought iron support.
Published in "Le Style Art Déco à travers les yeux du prince Asaka", p.134.
Measurements: 78,5 x 221 x 111 cm.

French Art Deco dining table designed by Raymond Subes, a piece that dates from 1932 and boasts the sumptuous style that characterized this creator. It achieves an elegant contrast of lines and materials: the light marble and marbled marble top with a rectangular profile is supported by a wrought iron structure that synthesizes the Déco postulates of vegetal abstraction and formal refinement. Thus, on the base of an "L", the uprights are erected in the form of refined bouquets that host lampshades, palmettes and scrolls that intertwine in an arc. This last motif, that of the interlaced semicircles topped with tulip, decorates the chambrana in the center of the transom. Designed with materials suitable for both indoors and outdoors, this table is versatile despite its uniqueness. It perfectly exemplifies the heights of Art Deco aesthetics.

Raymond Subes was a French artist and decorator, born in Paris. He is one of the most famous French blacksmiths of the Art Deco period. He attended the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs and the Ecole Boulle in Paris and was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Subes collaborated with the greatest decorators of his time, such as Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann. Throughout his career, until 1970, he worked with Émile Robert, in whose company he was artistic director and later general director. He designed stair railings and balustrades for ships such as the Lafayette. He also designed the lampposts of the Carrousel Bridge and the ironwork of the Palais de Tokyo, the headquarters of insurance companies, large hotels and restaurants in Paris, airports, department stores, historical monuments and national palaces. Always with an eye for the monumental, Subes created wrought iron designs on a magnanimous scale for cathedrals, churches, monuments and ocean liners.