Best known for his fantastical entrances to Paris metro stations (1900–1913), the architect Hector Guimard was a leading proponent of French Art Nouveau, relying on abstracted forms drawn from the natural world as seen in the curving, stalk-like shapes of this fireplace. He originally designed this fireplace as part of his largest and most important building project, a block of apartments in Paris known as the Castel Béranger, built between 1895 and 1898. One of Guimard’s collaborators was Alexandre Bigot, whose architectural ceramics firm provided the glazed stoneware panels that decorate the building’s vestibule and the fireplaces installed in some of the apartment dining rooms. In 1898 a portfolio devoted to the Castel Béranger published by the Rouam bookstore included a drawing for the fireplace.