Maison Jansen was a Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

-based interior decoration office founded in 1880 by Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

-born Jean-Henri Jansen and continuing in practice until 1989. Jansen is considered the first truly global design firm, serving clients in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 by 1900.

History

From its beginnings Maison Jansen combined traditional furnishings with influences of new trends including Anglo-Japanese style

Anglo-Japanese style

Anglo-Japanese is a term used to describe a style which developed in the period from approximately 1851 to 1900, when a new awareness of, and appreciation for Japanese design and culture affected the art, especially the decorative art, and architecture of England. The first use of the term occurs...

, the Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

, and Turkish style. The firm paid great attention to historical research with which it attempted to balance clients' desires for livable, usable, and often dramatic space. Within ten years the firm had become a major purchaser of European antiques, and by 1890 had established an antiques gallery as a separate firm that acquired and sold antiques to Jansen's clients and its competitors as well.

In the early 1920s Jean-Henri Jansen approached Stéphane Boudin

Stéphane Boudin

Stéphane Boudin was a French interior designer and a president of Maison Jansen, the influential Paris-based interior decorating firm.Boudin is best known for being asked by U.S...

, who was then working in the textile trimming business owned by his father Alexandre Boudin, and brought him on-board. Accounts of the arrangement vary. Speculation existed that Boudin was able to provide financial solvency

Solvency

Solvency, in finance or business, is the degree to which the current assets of an individual or entity exceed the current liabilities of that individual or entity. Solvency can also be described as the ability of a corporation to meet its long-term fixed expenses and to accomplish long-term...

 to the prominent but capital-poor atelier. Boudin's attention to detail, concern for historical accuracy, and ability to create dramatic and memorable spaces brought increasing new work to the firm. Boudin was made director and presided over an expansion of the firm's offices and income.

Furniture

Not originally equipped with its own workrooms for producing furniture the firm began by relying upon antiques and the furniture contracted to outside cabinetmakers. By the early 1890s Maison Jansen had established its own manufacturing capacity producing furniture of contemporary design, as well as reproductions, primarily in the Louis XIV, Louis XVI, Directoire, and Empire

Empire (style)

The Empire style, , sometimes considered the second phase of Neoclassicism, is an early-19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts followed in Europe and America until around 1830, although in the U. S. it continued in popularity in...

 styles.

Work

Throughout the firm's history, it employed a traditional style drawing upon European design, but influence of contemporary trends including the Vienna Secession

Vienna Secession

The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects...

, Modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, and Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 has also appeared in Jansen interiors and in much of the custom furniture the firm produced between 1920 and 1950.

Under Boudin's leadership, Maison Jansen provided services to the royal families of Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, and Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

; Elsie de Wolfe

Elsie de Wolfe

]Elsie de Wolfe was an American actress, interior decorator, nominal author of the influential 1913 book The House in Good Taste, and a prominent figure in New York, Paris, and London society...

, the German Reichsbank

Reichsbank

The Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government. Its first president was Hermann von Dechend...

 during the period of National Socialism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

; and Lady Olive Baillie's Leeds Castle

Leeds Castle

Leeds Castle, southeast of Maidstone, Kent, England, dates back to 1119, though a Saxon fort stood on the same site from the 9th century. The castle is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds....

 in Kent, England. The firm's most published work was a project by Boudin and Paul Manno, the head of Jansen's New York office, for the U.S. White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 during the administration of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

. At the same time, Jansen completed the interior of the motor yacht Chambel IV, now renamed Northwind II

NorthWind II

Northwind II is a classic 1960s luxury motor yacht, notable for the historic importance of her design.-History:Northwind II was built in 1966 at Camper and Nicholsons in Southampton, England. Launched as Chambel IV, she was renamed by her present owner in 1970...

. Northwind II is one of the few remaining complete Jansen commissions.