footnote: the Delbee Bedroom

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from our story about the Pierre Delbee entry, a footnote.

Pierre Delbee's intimate bedroom- lined with a deep green silk velvet fabric that is trimmed all round in a decorative tape. The bedroom walls are a canvas for portrait miniatures, bas relief  & other small works of art. The decorative tapes aid in defining these small pieces and serve as a frame of sorts for the various groupings. Try to imagine the walls without the rich color and the tapes-it doesn't work. Part of Delbee's design genius is evident in this somewhat obvious alchemy. What seems a simple idea is an inspired one!

Another note of interest & another simple ploy- the cinnabar lacquer like painted trim that further defines the space. The Chinoiserie lacquer desk is just one of the eye popping treasures Delbee inserts into the room. This piece, according to the definitive book on JANSEN by James Archer Abbott, is "signed by the great ebeniste Francois Rubestuck and dated circa 1766." My favorite piece in the room is the "serpentine headboard, covered in fragments of an antique allegorical tapestry, and surmounted by an array of crucifixes"
( JANSEN, JAA.) The bedcovering is a needlepoint tracery design with  vines and berries entwining 18th century scenes and figures. Though Abbott asserts that the Delbee bedroom was all show with little attention to function. Does it matter? It is just one of the jewel's in this- Delbee's masterpiece of an apartment.

The Delbee reign at Jansen Abbott writes- was to "design rooms for sensory impact"- his own bedroom is a powerful statement of that philosophy.

if you did not read making an entrance, about the Delbee foyer see it HERE.


photograph from  JANSEN by James Archer Abbott.
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making an entrance

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One of the most arresting entrances imagined was created by Pierre Delbee of JANSEN, in the 1960s. Finding the perfect balance in making a grand entrance dramatic, without staging, is a fine one. This hall, as it is referred to in The Best  of European Decoration, satisfies.

Five ebony doors, one, seen above were designed by Delbee in ivory, silver, copper and brass. The grey & blue walls are done in Louis XV-style paneling -the ceiling as well, further defining the space.  Black lacquer cupboards, c.1760, fit jewel box like into the corners and are decorated in carved & gilded wood. The classic leopard fabric, likely a velvet, adorns two benches-note the mismatched attitude of the pair.


Nowhere was  Jansen's craft exhibited more brilliantly. The Delbee creation reads beautifully in these color photographs- from the book JANSEN.

As the entry expands we see a much larger space-& its many incarnations. The Entry-now a Dining Room- is hardly recognizable-were it not for the ebony and ivory veneered doors.

Author James Archer Abott, JANSEN, says Pierre Delbee's residence represents the Jansen firm at its most "CHIC, and Eclectic."  Delbee designed for "sensory impact" and this entry would have been no less than heart stopping.

Recreating such a space- impossible. There is a studied singularity about the room. It would seem set-like & the genius of the room would be lost. The best take aways from Delbee are the jewel box impact: the paneled walls, varying color to highlight the moldings, symmetry, punctuating the grey with all the black that can be found, working the ceiling in the same way as the walls & an unhesitating hand.


sources and photographs sited in the text & here, JANSEN and The Best in European Decoration.

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