Why the Editors of VERANDA Chose This Living Room as Our Cover Image

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“It’s the gold-filled coffee table for me.” So said a VERANDA colleague while ogling first-bound copies of Volume 13, Issue I of VERANDA, otherwise known as our January/February 2024 issue.

Her comment surprised me: While the piece, an original Yves Klein ‘Monogold’ Table made in 1961, is iconic and unquestionably luxe, for me this room has always been all about the painted panel on the wall, a gold-lacquered forest scene painted by two French artists, Paul-Etienne Sain and Henri Tambute, in 1953. I’ve never seen anything like it—and neither had the designers of this space, Jesse and Mara Carrier of Carrier and Company, when they found it serendipitously at Bernd Goeckler while shopping with their clients. “It stopped us all in our tracks,” notes Jesse.

At first glance, the painted panel with its stylized trees that teem with life and botanical-inspired frame (in this case gilded ferns), recalls the tradition of Flemish verdure tapestry, a decorative arts tradition that continues to inspire textile designers. A closer look reveals this romanticized woodland scene is lacquered, not woven, and depicted on a concave panel that reaches into the sleek New York City living room like an embrace from the natural world, albeit a gilded one.

That most luxurious notion of decorative forest bathing, along with an instant emotional reaction to the piece by one of the homeowners, is how the massive panel (it measures 105 inches tall by 136 inches wide) found itself installed above the Jean de Merry sofa in this seven-story Beaux Art townhouse in New York’s Upper East Side neighborhood. “We’re always trying to balance the architecture,” says Jesse. “We wanted to bring some texture and history back into this old house that had been wiped clean inside.”

But with the Yves Klein coffee table from David Gill Gallery—also French, sleek, mid-twentieth century, and gold—the Carriers were going for something else entirely. In the largest space on the most public floor of the house where much of the clients’ art collection is shown, the table is an “artful, luxe, and iconic” answer to the more unexpected, lacquered panel above the sofa, notes Mara.

Adds Jesse: “We loved the idea of pairing the materials”—the gilt lacquer on the panel and the gold leaf sheets filling the acrylic tabletop. “Klein’s blue table (filled with blue powder pigment) is much more prevalent whereas you see many fewer of the gold. The gold is really special.”

That dialogue between the romance of nature and the ultimate flex of artful luxury cemented this image as our cover for our first-ever preservation issue. The best rooms, like their inhabitants, can express two (or more) ideas at the same time—and can appeal to different people for very different reasons.

I’m so grateful my colleague awakened me from my woodland reverie and called my attention to the Yves Klein table. This room, and our cover, wouldn’t be the same without it.

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