Setdart Subastas S.L
Lot 25
JULIEN HENRI VIARD, (Paris 1883-1938).Powder box, ca. 1925.Moulded glass.Provenance: Spanish private collection, formed between 1970 and 1995.Initials on the back "Institute a Beaute, 26 Place Vendôme, Paris".Slightly chipped and hair on one foot.Measurements: 7 x 11 x 11 cm .Art deco gunpowder box, with Egyptian reminiscences of moulded, pressed, frosted and colourless glass, with a triangular section and shape. Designed by Henri Viard. The lid is decorated with falcon wings and Egyptian scarab beetles.Designer of hundreds of perfume bottles during the 1920s, Julien Viard received his training from Antonin Mercié and then from his father, the sculptor Clovis Viard. The latter was associated with the Parisian Leblanc-Barbedienne establishments. During the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the press noticed an ornamental gilded bronze and marble fireplace designed by Clovis with the complicity of DenysPuech. At the 1907 Salon, Julien was awarded the prize of the Society of French Artists, category "engraving on medal and fine stone" and a medal in the decorative arts section. Clovis Viard is also known to have designed perfume bottles between 1900 and 1910, including the Rare de Caron.Around 1910, Julien turned away from bronze to work with glass and produced his first bottles, sometimes associated with Henri Hamm (1871-1961), from whom he would draw inspiration. Julien and his father then teamed up with Georges Viollet-le-Duc (1874-1951) to found around 1914 a glass manufacturing company in Montreuil-sous-Bois called "C. & J. Viard" which, slowed down by the war, became particularly active from 1918 onwards.Viard designed models to be blown or moulded, then had them cast en masse by glassworks such as Baccarat or larger producers such as Dépinoix or the Société parisienne de verreries. Viard generally took care of the finishing touches. Julien Viard also worked in collaboration with Lucien Gaillard and Lalique.Until his father's death in 1927, Julien Viard produced a large number of models of bottles, boxes and glass objects, mainly for French but also American perfume houses.
