Cavalcade Designed by Jean Lurçat for Maison Myrbor
Following her pioneering work in Algeria, Marie Cuttoli (1879-1973) founded Maison Myrbor in 1926. It was to become the gallery where she would promote decidedly ‘Modernist’ rugs designed by the young, avant-garde artists active in Paris at the time. One of the first artists to collaborate with her was Jean Lurçat, a painter and tapestry designer whose signature style was based on abstract depictions of real and imaginary creatures inspired by Greek mythology and ancient Chinese bronzes. Although he designed carpets for a number of French firms, his name is most often associated with the rebirth of the Aubusson tapestry weaving tradition, for which he drew a series of cartoons.
The present carpet, originally designed for Helena Rubinstein’s New York apartment, is decorated on both ends by a frieze of mythical winged horses on an open field, chartreuse-green background.
Representing one of the earliest Lurçat patterns commissioned by Marie Cuttoli, this piece evidences his particular genius in the way it confidently blends radical minimalism with a striking hymn to the ancient world.