Atelier Viollet’s gypsum cabinet was recently featured in a special spring 2013 supplemental issue of New York Spaces magazine entitled The Goods. The cabinet, also featured on The World Interior Design Network, is constructed with gypsum, ebonized pearwood featuring a satin-laquer finish, and silvered bronze. Read more about our gypsum and mica furniture at our website.
Atelier Viollet’s gypsum cabinet is featured on the World Interior Design Network website:
“Crafted from Swiss pear wood, the new artistic cabinets with gypsum veneers feature pearl-like smooth panels that cover the doors, which are carved from a soft sulfate mineral known as gypsum. Designed innovatively with the artistic use of gypsum, the cabinet makes a dominant presence in the surrounding. Featuring simple lines and straight cuts in its structure, the cabinet exudes the spirit of liveliness. Created elegantly, the new cabinet with gypsum veneers can add artistic charm to the aesthetic of any décor, modern as well as traditional.” (Source)
Learn more about Atelier Viollet’s gypsum furniture.
Like any true artist, Jean-Paul Viollet has a deep respect for the materials he uses. When he speaks of parchment and palmwood, his eyes light up. And, in the case of stingray skin—better known as shagreen—for his shagreen furniture, the reverence practically leaps from his tongue. The pebbled veneer has a regal history. It adorns the lustrous artifacts hidden in the 2000-year-old tombs of Egyptian pharaohs. It’s been found on the hilts of samurai swords and the toe caps of shoes worn by the Duke of Windsor. In the 1930s, the Aga Kahn had it installed in the interior of his Rolls Royce.
But King Louis XIV of France gets most of the credit for making it chic. Back in the 18th century, his mistress Madame de Pompadour, a prolific patron of the arts, was crazy about the stuff. After she turned her friends onto its many virtues, shagreen turned up on snuff boxes, humidors, and opera glasses all across Europe.
Between World War I and World War II, the masters of the Art Deco movement—guys like Jean-Michel Frank and Jacques Emile Ruhlmann—gave the material another boost, dazzling connoisseurs worldwide with their shagreen-covered chairs, cabinets, and tabletops. Inspired by those luminous works, Jean-Paul Viollet decided to learn how to incorporate shagreen in his own designs. “It’s an amazing material,” he says, “one of my favorites.”
Beyond its natural beauty, shagreen is prized for its durability. In the days of antiquity, it was actually used by sailors as sandpaper. Before Viollet could begin to master the material, however, he first had to find it. Given its long, illustrious history, you’d think that this would be a simple task, particularly in New York City, where you can buy almost anything.
But Viollet did not even know how to identify what he was looking for. In his native France, shark and stingray skin is called galuchat, in honor of the famed artisan Jean-Claude Galluchat, who supplied many of the baubles in Madame de Pompadour’s collection. The English term is an offshoot of the Turkish sagri.
Even after he learned what to ask for, Viollet spent many months canvassing the leather stores in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. When at last he was able to purchase a sample, he had to teach himself how to use it. There were no books or courses that explained the process. So, much like the Berlin-born artist Karl Springer, who brought shagreen back into vogue in America in the 1970s, Viollet experimented day after day with various dyes and adhesives. In the end, he developed a deep appreciation for the curvaceous chiffonier designed by André Groult for the 1925 Exposition Des Arts Décoratifs.
“To do a bombe surface in shagreen, you have to be pretty good,” Viollet says. “It’s one thing to lay something flat, but bombe? For that, you have to wake up early.”
These days, you will find shagreen on many of the sideboards, tables, and cabinets in the Atelier Viollet showroom. The skins come from stingrays raised on sustainable farms in Asia. A single piece of furniture may require dozens of skins—all evenly matched in tone. If the skins are not carefully selected, there’s a good chance they won’t look the same when dyed. Imagine having to purchase dozens of grapefruits that appear alike. For Viollet, the job is not something you take lightly. “I hate to waste materials,” he says. “You should not take nature for granted.”
Once the shagreen has been selected and dyed, it’s sanded to give it the Atelier Viollet luster. “The idea is to do a very, very fine sanding,” says Viollet. “Then it becomes very sensuous. Very soft-looking and a bit reflective.”
You might even say, fit for a king.
Of course, in the years since Jean-Paul Viollet took up the craft, shagreen has experienced yet another renaissance, popping up on Louis Vuitton handbags, an Hermés cigarette case, Ralph Lauren picture frames, and, yes, Manolo Blahnik shoes. You no longer need to own a throne to have it in your own home.
Jean-Paul Viollet is the latest in a line of classical architectural woodworkers who were active in Seyssel, a village in the Rhone Valley, since the early 19th century. Growing up in the family woodworking shop, he developed many of his trade skills and aesthetic sensitivities, working side by side with his grandfather and his father.
Looking for career opportunities to satisfy his avid curiosity, he decided to cross the ocean to America at the age of 23. Jean-Paul then committed several years to travel and research.
After settling in New York, his interest in Art Deco became stronger, seeking inspiration from the 1920’s master designers and fabricators such as Jean-Michel Frank, Eileen Gray, Andre Groult, and Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann.
He started experimenting with various materials such as shagreen, parchment and horn. These became the catalyst for Jean-Paul’s own design approach and the signature style of the New York Atelier Viollet many years later.
In the past 30 years, Atelier Viollet has produced furniture of unparalleled craftsmanship. Combining the latest technology with traditional techniques, and using the most varied materials to achieve excellence. The workshop has become a source for many prominent architects, decorators and interior designers.
Today Jean-Paul Viollet is presenting his latest work, the “Seyssel Collection“. Named after his home village, it is a synthesis of his New York experience. This will be the first time Jean-Paul Viollet has associated so many different materials and finishes in a single collection, such as Exotic woods, Shagreen, Parchment, Horn, Mica, Straw marquetry, Bronze and Steel.
The idea behind the creation of the Seyssel Collection is to combine the two concepts of functionality and aesthetic translated through simple lines, and give the aura to the beauty of the natural materials. The simplicity of the form is intended to let these materials speak for themselves with each of their distinctive textures, surface sensuality, and color and light reflection. It is an ode to mother nature.
The entire collection has been fabricated in our Brooklyn based workshop where our team of highly dedicated craftsmen is committed to excellence.
See more images of Atelier Viollet’s Seyssel Collection.
It’s a marvel to behold, a sleek black cabinet expertly crafted from Swiss pear wood and stained a deep, dark ebony—like the keys on a grand piano. That’s not what makes it special, though. Cast your eyes instead on the pearly panels that cover the doors. They’re carved from a soft sulfate mineral known as gypsum.
It’s not what you’d call a precious stone. In fact, it’s commonly used in the manufacture of wallboard, fertilizer, even some foods. The ancient Egyptians ground gypsum into a powder to make the mortar for their pyramids. After the great London fire of 1666, the King of France insisted that it be applied on wooden walls as a flame retardant. (Hence Plaster of Paris.) And in the years that followed, the translucent mineral has acquired magical powers. One of the more powerful crystals in the New Age movement, it’s hailed as an antidote to negative energy. None of that inspired Jean-Paul Viollet to use gypsum in his latest creation, however. No, he was drawn to it because of his profound admiration for Jean-Michel Frank.
“I am not by any means trying to compare myself to him,” he says, “because he was a genius. But as a craftsman, I’ve always been impressed by his choice of materials.”
Born in Paris in 1895, Frank grew up to become “the most influential designer of the 1930s,” according to Architectural Digest. He moved from Paris to Argentina to New York City, drawing not only artists, actors, and authors to his client list, but also Rockefellers. His work—often photographed by Man Ray—was heralded worldwide. At least one of Frank’s works—a bronze cabinet that appears on the front cover of a 400-page tribute to the designer that was published by Rizzoli Books and authored by the art historian Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier—featured panels made of gypsum.
That cabinet was the inspiration for Viollet’s new masterpiece. Years ago, the Brooklyn furniture maker ordered a few samples of gypsum with the hope of incorporating the material into one of his own designs. But one thing led to another and the project was postponed. And then, not long ago, Atelier Viollet received a few inquiries regarding gypsum. Clearly, it was time for a revival. And so began the six-month challenge of learning how to utilize the material.
Gypsum is not hard to locate. It’s mined on every continent in the world. But the unique texture—the enchanting faults and alluring striations—varies significantly from one quarry to the next. After reviewing a number of samples—some from as far away as Morocco—Viollet settled on a supplier here in the U.S.
His next trial? Figuring out how to process the multi-layered stone. The gypsum arrived in Brooklyn in great big slabs. The Atelier Viollet team had to learn how to slice it into thin veneers. After many hours and countless saw blades, the team moved on to testing the effectiveness of myriad adhesives. They had to find a way to firmly bond the stone to a wood substrate, a way that would stand up to all sorts of variables involving temperature shifts and moisture in the air.
When at last they saw the fruits of their labor, they could not help but be entranced by gypsum’s seductive charm. “We are amazed at the visual projection, the luminosity,” says Jean-Paul Viollet. “It’s a very talkative material. It conveys a lot of life.”
Seated now in his lab, he reaches out to pick up a piece of alabaster, gypsum’s more celebrated cousin. “It’s much more quiet, more subdued,” he says.
And so, with this cabinet, Viollet has accomplished what he set out to do. He has created a thing of rare beauty while mastering the use of yet another material.
In the end, it seems, Jean-Michel Frank’s dance with gypsum was all too fleeting. Was it because the material was hard to find? Was it because it was difficult to process? “I don’t know,” Viollet replies. Perhaps it was because Frank died too soon. In 1941, at age 46, he committed suicide. It’s unclear if he ever had a chance to try his hand at gypsum again after making that one cabinet in 1938. But Viollet certainly will. He already has an order for two bedside tables made of gypsum and bronze.
