Incollect Magazine - Issue 3

2022 Incollect Magazine 73 The foundation for an updated neoclassical dining room began with a floor painted in king- size chevron stripes, the walls covered in a remarkably reimagined Gracie wallpaper once used in a 1920s ballroom by legendary decorator Elsie de Wolfe. Alex had the Chinese Export pattern recolored en grisaille and hyperscaled, to create a smokey, ethereal ambiance. The eighteenth-century chandelier was laced with a strand of dark metallic ceramic beads by artist Eve Kaplan, to add a contemporary note and a visual link to the specially commissioned rock- work dining table base, also by the artist. A set of dining chairs are eighteenth-century French giltwood with unusual heart-shaped backs. The marble mantel is styled with objects that span centuries: a pair of mirrored obelisks by Serge Roche, circa 1940 from Liz O’Brien, a contemporary work by George Condo and an eighteenth-century gilt-bronze clock. Elaborate eighteenth-century giltwood consoles sport sleek ceramic lamps by Christopher Spitzmiller. Claude Lalanne’s fantastic Crocoseat chair and Crococurule stool in gilt bronze, modeled from the actual remains of a deceased crocodile acquired from the Paris Zoo, are surreal and sculptural twenty-first-century works of art that simultaneously contrast and connect with the extravagantly detailed antique consoles. Photo by Tria Giovan