Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann - Décor d’une chambre, page de carnet
© Les Arts Décoratifs
As decorator and integrator, Ruhlmann shared the taste of his contemporaries for harmonious and coherent interior designs. But as the heir to a thriving family business in paintings, wallpaper and mirrors, which enabled him to finance his aesthetic dreams, he attached particular importance to the decoration of walls and floors.
The collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs allow us to shed new light on this personal
passion. Ruhlmann as a decorator reveals himself through the pages of the twenty-six sketchbooks that his widow left to the institution in 1959, through the wallpapers removed from the walls of the Campus and by exploring the
contents of two manufacturing entities, Desfossé & Karth and the French Wallpaper Society (ESSEF), whose goods are conserved by the museum.
Ruhlmann designed models for these two workshops, some of which are presented for the first time.