The Designs of Jean Royère
The Designs of Jean Royère
Continuing our series of blog posts on important designers featured in our collection, this instalment concentrates on the work of Jean Royère (1902-1981). French-born Royère was an internationalist, studying classics at Cambridge and initially pursuing a career in banking and the import and export business. It was only at the age of 29, in 1931, that Royère began to work in the field that was to define the rest of his life, taking a job with a furniture manufacturer in Paris. He became one of the new breed of artistes décorateurs in France and carved out a particularly interesting niche in the field, being regarded as somewhat outside of traditional modernism whilst still being influenced by that school of design and creating a vastly influential style of his own in the process.
Royère opened his first store in Paris in 1943, in the middle of the chaos of the German occupation. He began to use his design business to promote a new way of living life that was widely adopted by a large group of highly prestigious clients. This clientele was both domestic and, increasingly, international, with a particularly strong following in the Middle East. Some of Royère's clients in that region included homes designed for the Shah of Iran, King Farouk in Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan.
By the 1950s, Royère had opened offices and/or galleries in Cairo, Beirut, Sao Paulo, Saint-Tropez and Lima. Part of Royère's enduring appeal was his ability to blend local regional traditions with European designs inspired by nature, particularly that in France and Spain where Royère had his homes. Many of Royère's designs have now become recognised as design classics and the firm carrying his name continues to exist to this day, despite the man himself dying in 1981.
Royère's designs seem to have always had in common a sort of playfulness and humour, in contrast to much of the more stark design created by his modernist contemporaries, and this is perhaps key to the enduring popularity of his pieces today with figures such as Jennifer Aniston being particular enthusiastic collectors of his work.
In our current collection we have a series of lamps by or attributed to Royère which allow modern collectors and decorators to add a little of the master's style to any interior. All of these lamps are floor standing and share in common their wrought iron bases. We are particularly fortunate in having a pair of one lamp design available
These lamps have five point adjustable mechanisms, an indication of the over designed nature of Royère's work. The design can be seen in a contemporary photograph in Le Decor d’Aujourd’hui, 1956, N.105.
Book 1000 lights Ed. Taschen 2005 page 394
A single lamp in our collection has this same adjusting system
A further single lamp in our collection is also inspired by this same design but has a four point adjusting system and a different form of base
This form of base is unusual and not that most usually seen on documented Royère lamps but the design is so similar in other respects that it is likely to be an unrecorded variant.
Our final Royère lamp is also a single example
but is made all the more interesting because of its utilisation of a rotating head design which allows further fine adjustment and makes the design even more practical. All of these lamps have been rewired and PAT tested and are ready for immediate placement in the modern home, adding that distinctive Royère style. Please don't hesitate to contact us if we can help you to learn a little more about any of these pieces and discuss the advantages of using these lamps to decorate your home.