Serge Roche

Serge Roche, Sculpture

Around 1930, somewhat against the trend of his era, Serge Roche embraced the baroque. His knowledge of the rococo decors and mirror rooms of baroque Europe helped to make him an instant success. First with an exhibition of frames and mirrors at Georges Petit's gallery in Paris, then with an array of furnitures at Elsie de Wolfe's gallery in New York. His successes eventually took him to the London gallery of Syrie Maugham where he showed an expanded range of sculpted and mirrored works.


Mirror fireplace from the rue Las Cases
Only one other was created, for Mrs C. Suydam Cutting, New York


Chandelier, painted metal and glass, circa 1937

He designed and produced furnitures, objects and decors that would hold their own for more than thirty years with a select clientele ranging from the likes of the couturier Chanel to Prince Ali Khan. Created from stucco and mirrors, his consoles, obelisks, fireplaces and decorative objects re-invented the baroque for the 20th century.


Mirror, 1930 - 1939


Plaster objects


A highly important mirror.
One of only two known examples, the other being in a private collection. Syrie Maugham purchased this looking glass from Serge Roche and placed it above the mirrored fireplace in the drawing room of Robin Wilson's apartment in London which she decorated in 1936. In the 1970s, Roche reacquired the mirror.


In addition to his own surrealist and neo-baroque works, Roche collaborated with Jean Michel Frank, Gilbert Poillerat, and the famous Sevres factory. His famous magic mirror was used by Jean Cocteau in his film La Belle et la Bette (1948), which ironically was to mark the end of the vogue of the neo-baroque movement.


La Belle et la Bete

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