The reaction of Le Corbusier to architect/ designer Charlotte Perriand’s request for a job in 1927 may help explain the paucity. “We don’t embroider cushions here,” he told the 24-year-old Parisienne.
A month later, having seen her work at the Salon d’Automn, the great man relented and for the next 10 years Perriand became the third key member of Le Corbusier’s studio along with Pierre Jeanneret.
However, the career climax of Perriand (1903- 99) is generally held to be her role developing the French ski resorts at Les Arcs in the 1960s-70s, from the prefabricated studios to the furniture.
Sets of her stacking chrome-plated tubular steel dining chairs made by the Italian factory Cassina appear at auction from time to time. They can make five figures if early examples in first-class condition.
Perriand set to go
The set of four offered at East Bristol Auctions’ (18% buyer’s premium) 20th Century Interiors sale on March 29 showed all the signs of aging one might expect and was pitched at £500-800.
The stiffened brown leather studded seats were sufficiently worn so as to make the stamps indecipherable but each chair was marked 1973. The set sold to a south-east England buyer at £1800.
