Posted 4 months ago
keramikos
(21 items)
Another of my obsessions: a giltwood Louis XVI-style furniture set with what appears to be hand-embroidered upholstery that I've nick-named the "Gigi" furniture, because I first noticed it many years ago in 1958's movie "Gigi."
It wasn't until some time in the 2010s (D'oh!) that I noticed a couple of the chairs from the set in 1939's "Ninotchka."
Then I started noticing pieces of the set in a lot of old movies (thirteen, so far), and all of them save one (1967's "Fitzwilly") had one common denominator: they had all been produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:
That furniture set must have been perceived as quite a prize, because it was one of only a very small fraction of items in the 1970 MGM auction catalog to have a picture.
MOVIES WITH "GIGI" FURNITURE SET PIECES
"Ninotchka" (1939)
"New Moon" (1940)
"Reunion in France" (1942)
"Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944)
"Mrs. Parkington" (1944)
"Madame Bovary" (1949)
"An American in Paris" (1951)
"Kind Lady" (1951)
"The Swan" (1956)
"Gigi" (1958
"Two Weeks in Another Town" (1962)
"Made in Paris" (1966)
"Fitzwilly" (1967)
"Gigi" is the film that has the most stills of the furniture set at IMDB:
Gigi on the Louis XVI-style giltwood couch with bird-themed upholstery. ("I don't understand the Parisians!")
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm266409217
Gigi and Great Aunt Alicia with the Louis XVI-style giltwood couch in background and two matching fauteuil chairs in foreground.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm3370325249
Gigi and Great Aunt Alicia on the Louis XVI-style giltwood fauteuil chairs with bird-themed upholstery.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm145131264
Gigi on the Louis XVI-style giltwood fauteuil chair with bird-themed upholstery.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm262571776
Gigi and Great Aunt Alicia on the Louis XVI-style giltwood couch with bird-themed upholstery.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm245794560
Great Aunt Alicia, Gigi, and Grandmother Inez on the Louis XVI-style giltwood couch with bird-themed upholstery.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm182719745
Grandmother Inez on one of the matching fauteuil chair and Great Aunt Alicia on then Louis XVI-style giltwood couch with bird-themed upholstery.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm3403879681
ASSOCIATED CW S&T POST ABOUT 1956's "THE SWAN":
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/319249-mgm-gigi-furniture-pieces-in-1956s-t
CW S&T POST IMAGE CREDITS:
Gigi seated on Louis XVI style couch while singing "I Don't Understand the Parisians!":
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051658/mediaviewer/rm266409217
Ninotchka sleeping off a champagne-drenched evening in her hotel suite:
https://archive.org/details/ninotchka-1939-3e-3-msf-6-islk
Dowager Miss Victoria Woodworth and her secretary in her office:
A low-tech screen capture from a Turner Classic Movies showing of 1967's "Fitzwilly."
The couch and two of the matching chairs seen in the 1970 MGM auction catalog:
https://archive.org/details/19700503-mgm-auction-catalog-copy/page/n7/mode/1up
This post is a work in progress (I'll be adding more information as resources permit).
I'm marking this as an unsolved mystery for now, because while I've learned quite a bit about the furniture set, there is also still quite a lot I don't know (such as: who bought this furniture at the 1970 auction).
Gorgeous Louis XVI style furniture esp in last photo, I believe that settee is the one shown with Gigi (Leslie Caron) in 1st pic. Good luck in your quest!
Newfld, thank you. :-)
Yes, it is definitely the same couch in the 1970 MGM auction catalog, and the scene from "Gigi." It's the upholstery that's distinctive, because there's a lot of 18th century style giltwood furniture in old movies.
I suspect that upholstery was embroidered, because I seem to detect subtle variations in the upholstery of the chairs.
There are actually more stills of that particular furniture set in the IMDB listing for "Gigi" than I've seen for any of the other movies, although the movie which shows the most pieces of the set is 1956's "The Swan."
Unless the film makers were both talented and tricky, I think I see six chairs in addition to the couch.
Such wonderful treasures keramikos!! Absolutely stunning pieces!!
jscott0363, Thanks. :-)
Nowadays I'm trying not to collect anything other than information. };-)
On this one, I broke down and bought a hard copy of the particular 1970 MGM auction catalog that has a picture of the couch and two chairs.
I had recently tripped on a Worthpoint listing for the particular catalog that had a picture of the page showing the furniture set, and my heart fluttered.
I decided to have it digitized so that it would be easier to search, and uploaded it to archive dot org as a kind of pay back/pay forward gesture. I've used archive dot org a lot in the last half dozen years.