Merry Christmas!

From my household to yours, I wish you a day that brims with good cheer.

Chic, 1913

Artist and designer Paul Iribe (né Paul Iribarnegaray, 1883-1935) was one of those protean talents of the 20th century who deserves to be a household word in certain circles but isn't. At least, not nearly enough. And the shapely, exotic chair shown above proves my point.

Made of giltwood and upholstered in snakeskin and brown velvet, the seat was designed by Iribe, a bespectacled Frenchman of Basque descent, for the Paris apartment of couturière Jacques Doucet in 1913. It sold in 2006 at Christie's Paris for the astounding price of $588,431. Chairs copied from this design have long graced the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City.

Paul Iribe, circa 1920. Image from "Paul Iribe" (Editions Denoël, 1982) and in the collection of the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center.

I think it's high time a big, splashy, glamorous book about Iribe and his breathtaking expanse of work was put into production. And in English, please: too many earthshaking design books (namely monographs of European designers and architects) get published in French and French alone. It's quite a wide-ranging oeuvre, including fashion and fashion illustrations, furniture, costumes, fabrics, wallpapers, and sets and art direction for Hollywood silent films such as "The Affairs of Anatole" (1921) and Cecil B. DeMille's "The King of Kings" (1927), in which Rose Cumming's sister Dorothy starred as the Virgin Mary. DeMille, in fact, pronounced Iribe "one of the best art directors I have ever had". The peripatetic Frenchman also designed the tender mother-daughter logo for the fashion house of Lanvin as well as "antic, expensive jewelry" (so wrote John Updike) for his lover Coco Chanel.

It would also be swell if some of Iribe's wallpapers and fabrics were put back in production. Perhaps his family would allow this. If so, do get in touch and let's talk.

This Iribe chair was created around the same time as the Doucet chair shown at the top of this post. The chair's partially silvered ebony frame was delicately carved with a dense and intricate array of foliage and berries. It sold at Christie's Paris in 2007.

A low black armchair designed by Paul Iribe in 1914. Image from the Broehan Museum.

The Ballot Box

Thanks for the nomination, whoever you are!

The 2009 Homie Awards nominations for the best home and design blogs are up and running at Apartment Therapy. What are you waiting for? Go give your favourite bloggers some love. Lots of terrific ones have already been posted.

Nominations are being taken between 22 and 29 December.

Click here to start.

Dream House: Folie Monvel (revised)

The living room of Folie Monvel, the Palm Beach residence of French artist Bernard Boutet de Monvel, 1937. Above the fireplace hangs a portrait of the artist's wife, the former Delfina Edwards Bello. Image by Samuel H. Gottscho from the Library of Congress.

Thanks to the arrival of a book for which I have been waiting—Designs for Outdoor Living by Margaret Olthof Goldsmith (George W Stewart, 1941)—I've discovered new information, including illuminating floor plans, about Bernard Boutet de Monvel's octagonal pleasure dome in Palm Beach.

Do revisit that earlier post, if you've a moment. It's richer now.

Get Inspired: Marella Agnelli

A dining room at Villa Agnelli, the country house of the Agnelli family, in Villar Perosa, near Turin, Italy, circa 1960.

One of Truman Capote's acclaimed swans, Fiat doyenne Marella Agnelli (born 1927) has always known how to host a dinner with grace, style, and invention.

Nicky Haslam, the British interior decorator, recalls once visiting the Agnellis' country house near Turin at the height of summer and being served a refreshing dessert of uncommon elegance devised by his half-American hostess—a small bowl made entirely of ice and heaped with white strawberries and white raspberries.

If you're wondering exactly how to make ice bowls like those used at the Agnelli dinner table, vessels Haslam described as looking like rock crystal, I found some handy instructions. For individual-serving sizes, just modify the dimensions of the bowls suggested in the directions.

Dream House: Bled Targui

The water feature seen from the entrance of Bled Targui, a famous Marrakech house that's now on the market.

One of North Africa's legendary houses is up for grabs, and if you have £3.4 million to hand—that would be a little more than US$5,600,000—Bled Targui, as the estate in Marrakech, Morocco, is known, would be well worth the investment. And not just because I adore its longtime owner, Hetti von Bohlen und Halbach, a septuagenarian former princess possessed of down-home charm and a hearty lack of pretense. When I told her I planned to bring my fairy-story-obsessed young daughter around to see her, to meet a real princess, Hetti said, with a broad grin, "Ach! Don't be ridiculous.! I'm too old and will scare the child. Find her a young princess so the fantasy isn't broken," going on to mention a mutual friend who would fit the bill.

Frau Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach at the front door of her Marrakech mansion. Image by Paul Hackett for The Times of London.

The main façade of Bled Targui, which was constructed in the mid 1960s for a Krupp armaments billionaire.

Built in the mid 1960s for German armaments magnate Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Bled Targui became a crash pad for the international jet set once it was inherited by the beautiful yet earthy Hetty—née Princess Henriette von Auersperg and a former sister-in-law of Sunny von Bulow—and her elegant, eccentric husband, Krupp's only son, Arndt. Everyone who is anyone partied hearty here in the jagged shade of rustling palm trees and the light of funky, flowery, 1970s chandeliers: Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, Andy Warhol, a generation's entire jeunesse dorée. The house, surrounded by nearly five acres of orange trees and rambling gardens, is blessed with big cool rooms, a multitude of terraces, and a colourful, boho/jetset decor with stories to tell.

For more about Bled Targui, read Karen Robinson's article in The Times of London. And to see photographs of the place, indoors and out, check out the illustrated listing on the website of real-estate agency Emile Garcin.

The dining room of Bled Targui, decorated in the 1970s with Warren Platner chairs and tables, a flokati carpet, and jet-black tiles.

One of the house's many terraces, this one located off the dining room.