For French lighting pioneer Delisle’s 130th anniversary, the maison looked forward to Paris and Venice-based interior architect and designer Edgar Jayet, and back into the lexicon of lamp iconography. Together, Jayet’s studio and the maison, which is the oldest chandelier manufacturer in France, developed the La Bouill0tte collection, stripping the archetypal object of decorative frills and honing in on refined geometries.
La Bouillotte began as a style of candleholder under Louis XV, for people playing the French card game of the same name. “It is recognizable by its moving lampshade, which you would lower as the candles burned,” Jayet tells Surface. “This lamp typology weirdly survived changes in fashion over the centuries, and it’s still part of tasteful interiors today, and in many of the lobbies along Park Avenue.” This continued relevance motivated Jayet to reinterpret it for the 21st century.
Manufactured in France, the new collection applies minimal, polished geometries—and a movable lamp shade—to eight different lamp variations. These range from the rat de cave and cierge, to table, lampadaire, applique, and suspension fixtures. A culmination of these forms, the chandelier is as much a work of architecture as it is design. “The collection is all made in brass, presented with either a mirrored silver or gold finish,” Jayet says. “The work of finishing these is extremely hard, with such big surfaces and with the simplicity of the silhouette. It doesn’t allow the craftsmen to make any mistakes.”
The La Bouillotte collection is on display at Maison Delisle in Paris from Jan. 16-20. The pieces launched, however, within Chateau de Chantilly, a historic French castle outside of the capital city. “This was driven by the will to present this new collection in one of the most exquisite interiors of France, as well as among one of the richest art collections,” Jayet says. “In the same way that our studio aims to remaster the past and think of contemporary creation in continuity with centuries of decorative arts, Chateau de Chantilly is a stratification of styles and fashions. We always try to choose our venues as a way to talk about the past.”
