This dressing cabinet by the Irish architect, painter and designer Eileen Gray was made for Tempe a Pailla, a house Grey built for herself in the south of France in 1934/35. Earlier versions of the dressing cabinet were found in Gray’s house E 1027 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France and served to separate the sleeping and dressing areas in the master bedroom. In this first version the main structure is made of wood and overlaid with sheet aluminium. When opened, the right-hand door reveals a full-length mirror. The interior comprises shelves of glass and silver-painted wood, together with six sliding or swivelling drawers overlaid with cork – a material Gray loved. Despite its apparent sobriety, this earlier piece embodies the refinement of Gray’s Art Deco years.
Later versions were successively more pared-down and the Tempe a Pailla version is even the more spartan: natural oak, no aluminium panels, and only one door, the left, reduced to the pure simplicity of natural wood. This removal of the aluminium brings a new reading of the piece by introducing transparency: Instead of separating the two spaces, Gray, in harmony with the house’s architecture, sets up a dialogue between solids and voids, and interplay between interior and exterior. Folding, unfolding, spreading out, swivelling, adjusting: The art of Eileen Gray lies in this proliferation of operations and functions within a single piece of furniture.
Text: Cloé Pitiot
