Interiors

French Fancy

Famed French wood workshop Féau Boiseries turns 150
Famed French wood workshop Fau Boiseries turns 150

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you purchase something, we may earn a commission.

In the world of interior design, the name Féau has particular resonance. Epitomising all that is excellent and wonderful in woodwork, the family-owned French company began life in 1875, when a certain Charles Fournier, a specialist painter and gilder, opened his workshop on Rue Laugier, a mere chisel’s throw from the Arc de Triomphe.

He was to become one of the most famous decorators in the Third Republic, creating work of exceptional quality for fabled Belle Epoque houses: Boni de Castellane and Anna Gould’s Palais Rose on Avenue Foch, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and steel magnate Henry Clay Frick’s mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York (now the Frick Collection).

Sources of inspiration... The maze of plasterwork and ornamentation on the mezzanine within the glass-roofed space, accumulated and catalogued since 1875. Photograph: Robert Polidori

An 18th-century Piedmontese decorative scheme reflected in a Viennese trumeau mirror from the Palais Paar in Vienna. Photograph: Robert Polidori

An interplay of mirrors, with mascarons looking on in amusement. Photograph: Robert Polidori

Eighteenth-century Italian pilasters, carved and gilded. Photograph: Robert Polidori

Raymond Grellou, a decorator with a passion for woodwork, bought the company from Fournier in 1917 and set about expanding its repertoire to include Art Deco geometries. In 1963 he sold it to Guy Féau and his son Joël. The former had been assistant to Jean Pascaud, one of the 20th century’s great furniture-makers and interior designers, who worked on the Normandie and Pasteur liners among other things. Joël, like his father passionate about the decorative arts and crafts, learned his trade at Maison Jansen under Stéphane Boudin, who presided over the redesign of the White House for Jackie Kennedy. Today, siblings Guillaume and Angélique represent the third generation of their family to head the company, which continues to create quite astonishing boiseries for houses from Paris to New York, inspired by historical examples in its archive. This is a veritable treasure-trove featuring complete sets by great architects such as Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, François-Joseph.

Bélanger, Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine. There is work by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, panelling made for Madame de Pompadour, Jeanne Lanvin and Săo Schlumberger among others, Art Deco masterpieces, creations from the 1970s… To top it all there are casts of everything in the collection, as well as a multitude of watercolour plates and models from the 18th century, old plans, engravings, columns, capitals, cornices, overmantels and antique fragments to inspire modern reproductions. And so it grows. For Féau Boiseries continues to hunt down such ornamental treasures, constantly adding to this unequalled archive.

Photographs from deep within the Féau Boiseries archives

Little is known about these photographs, which were all taken at the same location Féau Boiseries still occupies today. They show carpenters and joiners busily working, and are likely taken in the interwar period.

Féau and Cie: The Art of Wood Paneling: Boiseries From the 17th Century to Today
The French woodwork purveyor Feau and Cie has supplied designers with period paneling since 1875. Featuring documents, drawings, plaster models, panels, and antique boiserie rooms, its archive of 25,000 pieces many from the 18th century and Art Deco era is an unrivalled source of inspiration.
£50 at Waterstones

Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive stories like this one, direct to your inbox