Couch on display as part of the "Jazz Age" exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States.

Marcel Coard (1889-1974) was born in Paris and studied architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. He met French fashion designer and art collector Jacques Doucet (1853–1929) in 1914, and Doucet collaborated with him in creating a bombé vitrine (display cabinet with glass doors) in Macassar ebony, ivory, and mother-of-pearl for Doucet's home on the avenue du Bois. Early in Coard's career, he tried to mimic the tastes of his customers. In 1924, Doucet asked Coard to design a sofa for Doucet's studio on the rue Saint-James, where Doucet showcased primitive art and modern Cubist works. Coard opened his own gallery in 1930, where he produced furniture of a more personal style. These works garnered him a reputation as one of the great designers of the 1930s.

This canapé (sofa) in the shape of a gondola dates to about 1925. This is not the sofa Coard designed for Doucet; Doucet's sofa had ivory inlays along the basketwork, and seats of leather. Despite extensive research, it is still unclear who commissioned this version of the Doucet sofa. It had to be done with Doucet's permission, since Doucet (not Coard) owned the rights to the sofa through his commission.

This couch is made of wood covered in an Indian rosewood veneer carved to resemble basketwork. The veneer is bordered by silvered bronze. (Coard used ivory in the Doucet version.) The two front feet are ovoid and polished only on the front. The two rear feet are square, and unpolished. Coard's stamp appears in two places on the canapé, in the same locations they appear on the Doucet sofa. The exact provenance of this sofa is unclear, but it was discovered about 2015.

The Doucet canapé gondola is owned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. This near-duplicate is owned by a Midwestern art collector, and sold in 2016 for £974,500 ($1.4 million). Upholstered in white fabric when it sold, it was since been reupholstered in a more historicist pink-orange linen velvet.

1. CMAJazzAge