Like many of you have already noticed, almost everyone on Instagram is on holiday, laying in the sun and doing nothing. In case you are still at work, as well, here is something that made me dream for a while this week and took my mind off of work.
There is this appartement filled with some exquisite works of art―pieces by masters as Georges Jouve, Jean Prouvé and Philippe Anthonioz―all in 180-square-metres, and this apartment belongs to Emmanuel de Bayser.
A connoisseur in the art field, Emmanuel de Bayser is a collector and founder of the luxury department store, The Corner.
“I inherited an interest in aesthetics from my family. I was always surrounded by art on my father’s side and also on my mother’s. One of my grandfathers ran an art gallery dedicated to the drawings of old masters in Paris. The other one was constantly dealing with paintings, objects, furniture—mainly 18th century. My great-grandfather, George Desvallieres, was a very well know symbolist painter from the beginning of the XXth century. There was an exhibition of his work in Paris at the Petit Palais last year.” (Ignant)
In an interview with Vogue Australia, Bayser says, “For me, an apartment is not a stage set. If there’s too much colour, I’d quickly get sick of it.” And as for the term collector, he states, “I only buy things I need. I don’t see the point of acquiring objects to put them in storage. I want to enjoy them on a daily basis.”
“Decorating an apartment is a continual process. I think people who do up their whole apartment in a week are missing something—or else it ends up looking like a showroom. I’ve had this apartment for three years now, and it’s a work in progress. I keep changing things around. It’s fun, the space lives and grows with me. Maybe in summer I’ll add something to freshen things up. And in winter I want it to be more comfortable. So there are the base elements which stay the same, and then there are the parts you mix up. Even adding one flower makes a difference. I bought something in Paris and wanted it as a Christmas present but things didn’t work out with the transport. I was so looking forward to it and knew exactly where I was going to put it, and then it didn’t work. So I bought some flowers instead and then that changed the mood slightly—they smelled so good. Small things can make a big difference.” (Ignant)
