France, 1990s
H 85 x W 117 x D 35 cm
Wrought iron and gold leaf
Very good condition
€3,300
The top is a hammered iron sheet with raw, flame-cut edges, inlaid with two bands of gold leaf. It rests on two gilded spindles tapering to a point, crossed by flat black irons and joined by a curved bar; two arrow-shaped irons descend from the top towards the floor, carrying nothing.
Jean-Jacques Argueyrolles, born in 1954, belongs to the generation of ironworkers who, in the 1980s and 1990s, took wrought iron out of pastiche to treat it as a material to be sculpted. The contrast of rust and gold is his signature.
Forging leaves each example with its own surface accidents: variations in the rust and losses in the gilding belong to the object; they are not defects.
