Les Arts Décoratifs Suédois

The 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris was a great success for Sweden, where the style that came to be known as Swedish Grace gained international recognition and established the country as a leading design nation at the time. The Swedish pavilion, designed by architect Carl Bergsten, showcased high-quality decorative arts and furniture.

In the aftermath of the Paris exhibition, the demand for Swedish design remained high in the French capital. In December 1928, an exclusive store named Les Arts Décoratifs Suédois opened in Paris on Boulevard Malesherbes, under the management of Nordiska Kompaniet in Stockholm. Among the represented items were NK's furniture, Orrefors glass, Gustavsberg and Gefle porcelain factories, Firma Svenskt Tenn, silver from Atelier Borgila, and bronzes from Herman Bergman's foundry. The permanent interior was designed by NK's chief architect Axel Einar Hjorth and was manufactured in Nyköping, from where it was sent to be assembled on-site by French workers.

For the store in Paris, Nordiska Kompaniet once again engaged architect Carl Hörvik to design a series of furniture, seven in total, whose acclaimed works at the 1925 exhibition had garnered significant attention. The present desk should be seen as a particularly well-executed representative of the highly regarded Swedish design movement of the time, intended for the exclusive Parisian market.

The use of an inlaid linoleum top recurs in other pieces of furniture produced by Nordiska Kompaniet around the same time, notably in the reading tables designed by Gunnar Asplund for the Stockholm City Library, where inlaid linoleum, as in the case of the present table, continue around the rounded short ends of the frame. The Stockholm City Library was completed in 1928, the same year that NK's store in Paris opened its doors.