A MODERN TAKE ON 18TH-CENTURY FURNISHINGS

ENTREPRENEUR MARTIN PIETRI HAS CRAFTSMANSHIP IN HIS DNA

Manufactures Emblem Paris has been able to preserve French furniture and support artisans and their craft. When entrepreneur Martin Pietri founded Manufactures Emblem Paris in 2015, it was both to preserve some of France’s celebrated furniture ateliers and to support the artisans who were living repositories for centuries of rare craftsmanship and expertise. It was also a way to reconnect with his own family’s lost cabinetmaking heritage.

“It was in my DNA and in my culture,” Pietri says while seated in a Choiseul bergère from his first acquisition, Maison Taillardat. In Emblem’s new, gembox of a showroom in New York’s SoHo, Pietri recalls how his maternal grandmother would tell him stories about Georges Jacob, the maîtreébéniste (master cabinetmaker) who founded a dynasty of cabinetmakers in 18th-century France.

Pietri heard how Jacob was responsible for Louis XVI’s throne and furniture for Marie Antoinette—and how that relationship almost cost Jacob his head during the French Revolution. Thanks to his friendship with the famous painter Jacques-Louis David, Jacob was spared the guillotine, and went on to provide elegant furniture for many of Napoleon’s residences, as well as his descendants.

But the story Pietri’s grandmother related was not just one of nostalgia, but of regret: Jacob’s grandson Alphonse Jacob Desmalter shuttered the company doors, ending the dynasty of these pre-eminent neoclassical cabinetmakers.

In 2015, destiny called.

While visiting Maison Taillardat, which manufactures high-end traditional furniture designed and executed according to original drawings from the 18th century and traditional methods, Pietri met with the company’s matriarch, Madame Taillardat. She told him her daughter didn’t want to take over the company, and that she needed to sell Maison Taillardat. “At this time I was wondering about my professional life,” Pietri says. “I wanted to reconnect with this part of my family legacy, and I decided I wanted to get into my own creative business to have more freedom.”

Pietri saw an opportunity to both have his own business and to restart his family’s story. “Of course, she was not from my family, but it was the same field, the same know-how,” Pietri says. “These things spoke to me very, very deeply.”

Pietri remembers his first visit: “When I walked into the workshop and saw the team, the products, I thought, ‘This is for me.’ ” In the Maison Taillardat catalog, there is a Jacob chair, which honors Pietri’s ancestors.

Maison Taillardat is the biggest part of Emblem’s portfolio. “We do business all over the world, in the most beautiful palace hotels, such as George V, Le Meurice, and Plaza Athénée hotels in Paris, but also in amazing homes for people,” Pietri says. “At the same time, because we only work with interior designers and not the general public, we’re not very well-known.”

In addition to Maison Taillardat, Pietri also added enamel specialists Manufacture des Émaux de Longwy

Martin Pietri, shown above, is a descendant of one of Napoleon’s furniture makers. to the Emblem Group. The company, which dates back to 1798, is the last manufacturer in the world to practice its specific technique of cloisonné, which uses ceramic as the base instead of the more commonly used metal. “It’s very important to keep this expertise alive,” Pietri says. “I’m very proud of this company because this year we worked with Yves Saint Laurent and with the architect and designer India Mahdavi.” is the latest addition to the growing Emblem portfolio. “It’s amazing because nobody knows that gold leaf can be applied everywhere,” Pietri says. “We do projects for residential, for public areas, and within Emblem— Vernaz works with Taillardat to gild wood, for example.”

The showroom in New York’s SoHo displays Emblem’s high-end museum- quality furniture and decorative objects of both classical and contemporary design with a kind of je ne sais quoi; walls and ceilings are covered in garden treillage with blue-sky motifs, and a Vernaz & Filles gilded mirror hangs above a Maison Taillardat Reine console, which looks down on a Murat chaise from Maison Taillardat. There’s even a replica of Marie Antoinette’s lit pour chien, the Théodore dog bed. Bees, Emblem’s logo, are featured on cabinets while birds decorate walls and ceramics, alike.

“So this little Frenchie comes to the U.S. with 18th century-inspired chairs,” Pietri jokes. “It’s quite unique.” Jokes aside, Pietri enjoys being a bit of a novelty in the States. “We are so French, so colorful, so fantastical, but at the same time we can give a contemporary twist.”

Pietri’s contributions to the advancement and preservation of France’s design heritage won him the honorific “Chevalier” by the French government in 2021.

“I think I am in the middle of the story,” Pietri says. “In order to remain relevant, we need to double our size. I want to welcome new knowledge, techniques, and companies.”

Pietri soon acquired furniture maker Maison Craman-Lagarde, known for French classic, Art Deco, and contemporary styles. “At Craman-Lagarde we can manufacture Marie Antoinette’s desk in mother of pearl [the original is at Château Fontainebleau],” Pietri says. “And at the same time we can work with a French designer to do very contemporary marquetry.”

Vernaz & Filles, renowned for its gold leaf and custom restoration work,