Rooms & ProjectsFive Dining Sets for a California House
Five complete sets in the current sale, from a mosaic table with its original bench to a Brown Jordan suite that can stay outside all year.
1885–1946
French designer of heavy oak furniture with rope and rush seats, whose name now covers far more objects than he can have made.
Why they matter
Dudouyt trained at the Germain Pilon school and worked first as an illustrator, including for the satirical magazine L'Assiette au Beurre. He came to furniture after the First World War, founding a rustic furniture works called L'Abeillée at Pontoise in 1920 and then a Paris workshop, La Gentilhommière, in 1933.
What he made sits between Art Deco cabinetmaking and something older and more rural: solid oak, ash and beech, blunt turned or faceted members, and seats and backs woven from rope, rush or wicker. He died in 1946, before the postwar market that now carries his name existed.
The furniture is honest and heavy and the oak has usually darkened to a good colour. Buy it for what it is rather than for the label, because the label is the least reliable part of it.
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Key forms & materials
Forms
- Oak and rope armchair
- Ladder-back dining chair
- Oak sideboard
- Turned oak stool
- Occasional table
- Carved armoire
Materials
- Solid oak
- Ash
- Beech
- Rope
- Wicker
What to look for
Marks, editions, patina and production partners — fact-checked for this designer.
- No stamp, brand or label system is documented for either of his workshops, which is the root of the attribution problem.
- He died in 1946, so anything catalogued as Dudouyt and dated to the 1950s or 1960s is at best a later workshop working in his manner.
- Attributed to and in the style of dominate the market for this name and should be read as descriptions of a look.
- Judge the piece on the oak, the weight, the quality of the turning and the age of the rope, because that is what you are actually buying.
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