Orsay acquires a work by Georges de Feure

17/11/23 -  Acquisition - Paris, Musée d’Orsay - Siegfried Bing played a leading role in the revival of the decorative arts. In 1895, he opened his shop "L’Art nouveau" in Paris, which gave its name to the famous artistic movement that flourished throughout Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries under various names, including Arts and Crafts in the UK and Jugendstil in Germany. At the 1900 Universal Exhibition, it had its own pavilion, called "L’Art Nouveau Bing" (ill. 1 and 2). This ephemeral architecture was built by André Arfvidson. Georges de Feure was entrusted with the decoration of the façade, which he adorned with seven panels painted in oil on canvas, a surprising choice for an exterior décor. The iconography of the ensemble is not specified anywhere other than in an article by Gabriel Mourey for La Revue des arts décoratifs, which states that the artist painted allegories of the applied arts, Wrought Iron, Jewellery, Glasswork, Pottery, Leatherwork, thus Sculpture and Architecture.

1. Exterior view of the Bing Art Nouveau Pavilion, 1900
Photo: Public domain

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2. Exterior view of the "L’Art nouveau Bing" pavilion, 1900
Photograph pasted into l’Album de références de l’Art Nouveau.
Paris, Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs
Photo: Arts décoratifs

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These panels, which were displayed beneath an architectural frieze of stylised orchids created by La Forest, were dispersed and lost. Only three have now been located, acquired by the Musée d’Orsay. Two of them were donated in 2015 by the Société des Amis [1]: the first represents Pottery (ill. 3), the second is not clearly identified (ill. 4), as the young woman’s attribute - a cloth, a fabric - does not correspond to any of the allegories cited by Mourey. She could more logically embody the art of textiles.
A third painting joined them very recently, again acquired with the help of the Friends of the Musées…