14/08/2026
Where are you traveling this summer? 🌍
Jean Dunand’s monumental Mappemonde or Atlantique, c. 1935–1937, takes us around the world through the art of lacquer.
Executed by Jean Dunand after a design by André Nivard, Official Painter to the French Navy, the panel was created for Clin-Comar, one of France’s leading chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Benefiting from industrial advances and the rapid development of modern communications, Clin-Comar quickly established an international presence, exporting its products worldwide.
The composition celebrates the medical and pharmaceutical sciences: Saint Genevieve, protector against calamities and epidemics, radiates from Paris towards the five continents. Medicinal plants—including gentian, foxglove and poppy—symbolise the resources of the pharmacopoeia, while the confronting serpents recall the symbolism of medicine inherited from Antiquity.
Microscopes, alembics and an apothecary jar inscribed “Acet. Cupr.” (copper acetate) celebrate advances in scientific research and pharmaceutical chemistry.
Executed using a technique inspired by Coromandel lacquer, in which areas of colour are enclosed within slightly raised contours.
Signed “Laqueur Jean Dunand” lower right and “André Nivard” lower left.
H 210 × W 170 cm, with blackened wooden frame.
