A hidden gem, a collaboration with the National Museum of Decorative Arts (MNAD)

Madrid, 1912: Lovers of decoration, architecture, crafts, design and art celebrate the Banquet of Creativity in a beautiful palace in the capital. But at sunset, at the climax of the party, an envious sorceress casts a spell on them, turning them into wonderful, but petrified, decorative objects of all time.

With dramatic colours, velvety textures, botanical figures and elegant forms, the illustrator Irene Pérez (quote Irene's profile) reveals just some of the wonders hidden in this museum, located in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Madrid. The pleasure is all ours!

• Zeus and Medusa: a mythological love

Tic. A. Tick-tick. Two. Tick-tick-tick. Zeus blinks three times, the most nocturnal guardian cat. He greets Medusa in Morse code, his extravagant bride with 8 arms and 7 chandeliers, all made of steel and ceramic, who looks at him from on high. And he promises that there is less to be together... His sorceress owner has told him.

• Hoffman: The glass that was believed to be a column

With clear ideas and monolithic phrases, Josef was an avant-garde Viennese teacher before becoming a precious translucent glass with three layers of glass and geometric figures.

Just before the spell, he defended the collaboration between art and industry to create decorative objects. And this is a concept that floods our daily life... or not?

• Cantilever, the chair that wanted to fly

“Draw a chair without lifting the pencil”, that was the challenge Lilly posed to her tablemates, before they turned her into an iconic #Cantilever chair.

Who does not remember one like it in a nice bar or in their parents' or grandparents' living room? And it is that this elegant "modern rocking chair" was a commercial success in the 70s, due to its fine lines, flexible for the first time, so light that they look like flying chairs.

You can find several exhibited in the Museum, dressed as if they were going to have tea. Or, now, in the new THE MADRILEÑER; as a decorative throne that reminds us of the beauty of simple things.

• birds and flowers

There was a very young girl at the banquet, who was solemnly bored in the company of the famous architect she was accompanying. Rather than fall asleep at the table struck down by boredom (she was, despite everything, very polite) she decided to wander with her mind to very distant lands. He was walking in a meadow full of birds and colorful flowers, when suddenly the sorceress arrived... And he froze his thoughts!

These were immortalized in botanical motifs in the ceramic collection at the National Museum of Decorative Arts ☺.

“A hidden jewel” is the new #THEMADRILEÑER by Irene Pérez for @MNAD_Madrid. Spoiler warning: it only fits in exquisite decorations ;)