Attributed to Syrie Maugham (1879-1955), an Art Deco mirrored tester bed
c.1930...

Attributed to Syrie Maugham (1879-1955), an Art Deco mirrored tester bed

c.1930

Overall inset with mirrored panels, the fabric canopy on octagonal supports, with shaped headboard and box spring, raised on stepped feet

197cm high, 130cm wide, 200cm long

Provenance: The vendor was bequeathed the bed by her American godfather, Russell L. Rhodes (1931-2010). The bed was reputed to be by Syrie Maugham. A well-educated (Loomis School, Yale & Harvard) and erudite man Russell Rhodes was, in today's terms, one of the original Mad Men working for Craig & Kummel and Ogilvy & Mather. He spent a number of years in France and England. He also wrote five novels, in the spy genre, including The Herod Conspiracy and The Styx Complex. After his retirement he travelled extensively and visited his many friends. His obituary mentions his …seven godchildren in the United States and the United Kingdom, of which the vendor is one. His obituary in the New York Times, January 9^th 2011, reported that there would be a memorial service and that Martinis would be served.

Notes: Syrie Maugham (1879-1955) society interior and furniture designer who opened her first shop at 85 Baker Street in 1922, moving not long after (1924) to the more prestigious Grosvenor Square. Amongst her clientele she numbered The Duke & Duchess of Windsor, Noel Coward, Mary Pickford and Ava and Paul Melon. She was married to the writer Somerset Maugham but they divorced in 1929.

She famously painted the inside of her own home almost entirely in white and this white look was said to have influenced a number of Hollywood film sets. She later went on to have a blue period followed by a red one. She incorporated mirrors and mirrored surfaces in her schemes which went well with her white, wiped-surface furniture. She undertook several commission in a America. A photograph of her all white drawing room, circa 1933, is illustrated with a large mirrored screen as a backdrop, (p. 74)in the Thirties exhibition Catalogue held at the Hayward Gallery, London 1979-80, and another mirrored folding screen is illustrated p.130 (Ref 2.50). The same interior photograph is illustrated in Pauline C. Metcalf's 'Syrie Maugham - Staging glamorous interiors', New York, 2010, p.86 and another image taken by Cecil Beaton of his younger sister Baba Beaton in front of the same screen.