Chicest things I saw this week

I think this will be a regular feature of my blog, selecting the piece, whether a work of art, jewelry or other object that most impressed me in the past week.

Living in Hudson is great because of the window shopping, the quality of what is up here is often quit surprising and wonderful. There are more sophisticated dealers on Warren Street then I remember there being in the past and the level has gone up a lot. So have the prices, which some people who remember Hudson from the past complain about, but what they don't mention is that the material on offer is so good, and with the advent of the Internet, everyone everywhere knows what everything is worth; there are no bargains anymore. Because the cost of maintaining a shop is so much less in Hudson, dealers do price their items better than they would in the city.

So this week it is two modern pieces of furniture.

Lucite and bronze coffee table by Pierre Giraudon, ca. 1970's.
window of GRIS, 614 Warren St., Hudson, NY.

This table is made of what Giraudon called "fractal resin", and you can see why, it is like craqueline that crazed glaze once popular on ceramics. The effect is as if the Lucite was shot through with gold leaf bits, is probably partly the color of the Lucite itself that on the break planes reflects a golden glint. Contemporary and modern design pieces have become quite popular and with this piece you can see why, the materials are wonderful, the quality of the making high, and the production was actually quite low in quantity. These pieces are actually quite rare and distinctive, and priced accordingly.

Another gem is to be found on Warren St:

Limed oak sideboard by Claude Aliver Merson, with verre eglomise panel by Max Ingrand.
French, 1942.
In the windows of Historical Materialism, at 601 Warren St. in Hudson, NY.

This amazing sideboard is a knockout, commissioned for a grand apartment in Paris in the early 1940's, it is over the top. The medieval references are done with such bravura and in such an over scaled manner as to make it cinematic in its effect. It looks to me very Hollywood, something you would see in Norma Desmond's house in Sunset Boulevard. It takes a special buyer who has operatic taste for this, don't you think? I imagine a piece like this in an otherwise very muted room, this would kick it up a notch, and set off everything else. I believe in foils, employing something really off base to keep things from being bland, but a whole room of this, might be too too much.

Hudson is great, if I ever feel slightly down, all I have to do is go to Warren Street for some visual stimulation.