Atelier Courbet

“Master craftsmen gallery,” Atelier Courbet is a new player on New York scene – a place for timeless designs that combine, in everyday life, heritage and modernity.

Atelier Courbet is unique gallery with a unique eye. French with Tunisian origins and a strong decade-long foothold in America, Mélanie Courbet transcends the best of both worlds. An agile regard, solar curiosity and true love of beautiful led her to open Atelier Courbet in autumn 2013, in a Manhattan where all concepts seemed to have already been explored.

After years spent between Europe and Los Angeles, where she served as a cultural projects curator, faithful ambassador for luxury brands, director of international development for design agencies and designers, Courbet wanted to give free rein to all her passions: to pay tribute to the work of craftspeople, to recognise ancestral skills and surround herself with the finest materials, to celebrate a contemporary vision of design. Her atelier – both gallery and shop – reveals itself like a thick history book, whose paper, printing, illustrations and patent leather covers all inspire respect. I

n the former Brewster Carriage House, where customised carriages were built at the end of the 19th century, renovated for the occasion, Norhla Mongolian cashmere throws sit alongside the even stitches of Domeau & Pérès leather saddles atop a yellow bike made in collaboration with Pharell Williams. Further on, simplistic containers in brass and copper from the  venerable Japanese house Kaikado awaken the blue shades of the indigo textiles made in Mali by calligrapher, artist and designer Aboubakar Fofana. The illustrious expertise of Sevres is revived through contact with the refined porcelains presented in museum showcases. Moving on, the carved Cristallerie Saint Louis carafes and Hanne Enemark sculpture-vases glitter in the centre of a space decorated with mosaics and dark bricks.

Atelier Courbet is an ode to design that, like a poem, escapes time to better reveal its substance.

The Brewster Carriage parked in front of the former Brewster & Co. Manufacture that houses the Master-Craftsmen Gallery, Atelier Courbet today

The Atelier Courbet showroom, adjacent to the Atelier Courbet Gallery

The Artists rugs collection of Sabine de Gunzburg at the Atelier Courbet Gallery adjacent to the showroom

Melanie Courbet introducing her new collaborative collection between NY artist Anna Karlin and the 300 years old weavers workshop of Nishijin, Hosoo

Text: Clara Le Fort

Photos © courtesy of Atelier Courbet