Wrought iron, marble, wood.
Height: 29" - Width: 32" - Depth: 32.5"
The ironworker Paul Kiss received a commission in 1923 from the Paris Directorate of Fine Arts to design a wrought-iron console with a display case intended to contain the books of remembrance for soldiers who died in the First World War, for the town halls of each arrondissement of Paris. The Paul Kiss family archives preserve several console designs created for this commission, but it was the model featuring olive branches—a symbol of peace—or, if it was laurel branches, a symbol of heroes, that was selected. Paul Kiss also used this motif for the gate of the 1914–1918 war memorial in the town of Levallois-Perret, a work that was awarded a silver medal at the 1924 Salon des Artistes Français. Identical consoles to ours, complete with their glass cases, can still be seen today in at least the town halls of Paris’s 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 16th arrondissements.
