Art Deco box by Jean Tetard, 1920s

Jean Tetard et Cie

An extremely elegant Art Deco silver cigar or cigarette box by the French jeweller Jean Tetard, the elliptical box with subtle looped hardwood handles to each end, and a corresponding finial to the lift-off lid. Bearing poinçon marks to the underside.

French, circa 1920s.

Length: 9 inches (23 cm)

Notes: Having trained as an artist and sculptor at Paris’ elite Ecole des Beaux Arts, Tetard turned to designing and manufacturing elegant pieces of silver in the early 1920’s. This coincided with the burgeoning popularity of the Art Deco movement, the name derived from the Exposition des Arts Decoratif et Moderne, held in Paris in 1925.

The 1928 Salon d’Automne in Paris saw a number of fine pieces exhibited by Tetard, described by Alastair Duncan in his 1988 ‘Encyclopaedia of Art Deco’ as being “audacious in their originality, and of superb quality with an intensely personal style”. Tetard also designed pieces for Cartier, who retailed them in Paris and London.

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