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Cabinet dit le Nid d'aigle
Cabinet
Cabinet dit le Nid d'aigle
Designed by: Louis Majorelle (French, 1859–1926)
French (Nancy)
about 1900
Medium/Technique
Oak, stained walnut, Macassar ebony, burr walnut, burr amboyna, green-stained plane wood, palm wood, and snakewood; coral-stained maple; wrought-iron mounts; silk
Dimensions
Overall: 180 x 75 x 48 cm (70 7/8 x 29 1/2 x 18 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds by exchange from the Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Jackson Holmes, Gift of the Collection of Edward Jackson Holmes, Gift of Mrs. E. S. Hinds, Gift of Mrs. Guy Currier, Gift of Mrs. Edward Foote Dwight in memory of her father and mother George Parson and Sarah Elizabeth Eddy Parsons, Gift of the Misses Amy and Clara Curtis, Bequest of Mrs. Matilda E. Freylinghuysen, Gift of Paul and Helen Bernat, Harriet Otis Cruft Fund, George A. Goddard Fund, Gift of Mrs. George J. Putnam, Gift of Miss Anne C. Langdon in memory of her father Paul H. Langdon, Bequest of Susan Howard Pickering, Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Gift of Eben Howard Gay, Frederick Brown Fund, Gift of Eugene L. Garbáty, Bequest of Mrs. Charlotte Bradstreet, Bequest of Charles Hitchcock Taylor, Gift of Eleanor A. Sayre in memory of Miss Aimée and Miss Rosamond Lamb, Bequest of Mrs. Harriet J. Bradbury, Helen and Alice Colburn Fund, Francis Bartlett Donation, Gift of Frank Gair Macomber, Gift of George B. Dexter, an Anonymous Gift and Samuel Putnam Avery Fund
Accession Number2005.525
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsFurniture – Case furniture and boxes
The prototype for this cabinet won five medals at the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris, earning Majorelle a reputation as the leading Art Nouveau furniture designer. Majorelle drew on forms from nature for much of the inventive design. The cabinet rests on a sculpted walnut base resembling roots, from which a tree springs. The marquetry (pictorial veneer) panel of an eagle’s nest and the wrought-iron mounts shaped like stylized plants hearken back to eighteenth-century French cabinetmaking traditions, but the cabinet as a whole marks a decisive break from the historical revival styles fashionable in the late nineteenth century.
ProvenanceRobert Tschoudjouney, Paris; by inheritance from Tschoudjouney to a private collector; sold by the private collector to the Galerie Elstir, Paris; 2005, sold by Galerie Elstir to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 21, 2005)