1940s Settees

French mid-century dark mahogany settee with gilt bronze sabot feet and armrest supported by gilt bronze eagles with brown upholstery. Signed Jean Pascaud, by Vadim Androusov (ref: Les Decorateurs des annee 40, pg 172). Jean Pascaud was born in Rouen in 1903. He took a degree in engineering from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, but his passion for furniture and décor, and the influence of his father in law, Auguste Bluysen, (then President of the Société des Architectes Modernes), led Pascaud to abandon a more traditional career and take up furniture design instead. By the late 1920s Pascaud regularly at the Salon des Tuileries, at the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, and the Arts Ménagers.  His work is simple, yet technically ambitious and brilliant; his pieces are impressively large, but aesthetically balanced. Vadim Androusov was born in St. Petersburg in 1895. He was a grandson of the archeologist Schliemann. He arrived in Paris in 1920 and took classes at La Grande Chaumière academy; Bourdelle was one of his professors. His first sculptures date from 1925 and depict female figures and characters drawn from classical antiquity. He rarely used bronze, preferring terracotta, plaster, wood, and stone. He showed his creations at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Indépendants. While a sculptor, he also collaborated with interior decorators and created wall-mounted light fixtures, furniture pulls...