The Fabulous Interiors from the Iconic SS Normandie Are Now For Sale
In Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Let Them All Talk, Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, and Dianne Wiest play old friends who reunite for a journey from New York to England on the Queen Mary 2 (the movie was shot on the ship during one of her voyages, with natural light, minimal equipment, and real passengers on board). The women are not on a cruise, a distinction Streep’s character, Alice, is keen to point out. “It’s a crossing,” she says. “Crossing time zones… Crossing into something unknown. A cruise just seems meandering and silly.”
The last of her kind, the Queen Mary 2, crown jewel of the Cunard Line, recalls an era when maritime travel was a grand affair, when the journey mattered as much as the destination, and formal attire was required at dinner. For scenes in the dining room, the crew wore tuxedos.
Eighty-nine years ago, even the QM2’s luxurious predecessors were eclipsed by the SS Normandie. Introduced in 1932, the French liner was a floating shrine to Art Deco and, with more first class cabins than second or third, a gilded refuge for the one percent. The dining room, lit with pillars of Lalique glass, was longer than Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors, and the Grand Salon was lined with soaring verre églomisé murals by Jean Dupas.
The fans: Marlene Dietrich, Frida Kahlo, Ernest Hemingway, and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt all sailed on the Normandie.
The news: The Normandie’s interiors were auctioned after the ship’s fiery demise in 1942. One of the Dupas murals hangs in the Met. A few other pieces, including the panels here, have been acquired by New York gallery Maison Gerard, which means that, yes, they are now for sale.
This story appears in the April 2021 issue of Town & Country.
You Might Also Like
