Diego Giacometti
1902–1985
Sculptor who made furniture in bronze rather than iron, populating tables and lamps with cats, birds and foxes at the scale of a hand.
1902–1981
Paris decorator whose furniture went soft and animal exactly as French modernism was going rectilinear, and who signed almost none of it.
Why they matter
Royère came to design late, at twenty-nine, after starting in import and export. He won the competition to renovate the Hôtel Carlton in 1933, showed at the 1937 Paris exposition, and after the war opened offices in Cairo, Beirut, Tehran and São Paulo, working for King Farouk, King Saud and the Shah of Iran.
The forms are the reason for the prices: the Ours Polaire sofa of 1946, the Éléphanteau chair, the Liane wall lights, straw marquetry cabinets, and outdoor seating in perforated and tubular painted metal. Nothing about them is doctrinaire and almost nothing is straight.
He retired in 1972, gave over twenty thousand documents to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1980, and died in Pennsylvania the following year. His top market is among the highest in twentieth century design, which is precisely why attribution has to be documented.
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Key forms & materials
Forms
- Ours Polaire sofa
- Éléphanteau chair
- Liane wall light
- Perforated metal lounge chair
- Straw marquetry cabinet
- Champignon lamp
Materials
- Perforated sheet metal
- Wrought iron
- Straw marquetry
- Painted tubular steel
- Wool
What to look for
Marks, editions, patina and production partners — fact-checked for this designer.
- Period Royère is essentially unsigned, so a mark is not what you are looking for; documentation is.
- The two-volume catalogue raisonné published by Galerie Jacques Lacoste and Galerie Patrick Seguin, and the archive those galleries hold, are the recognised authorities.
- A separate contemporary brand produces licensed new Royère pieces which are stamped, numbered and certified, so a mark points to recent manufacture rather than to a period piece.
- Because originals carry no mark and prices are very high, a large volume of in the style of wrought iron circulates under this name.
- He died in 1981 in Pennsylvania after retiring to the United States, which is worth knowing when a provenance story reaches that far.
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