Pair of Art Deco Tub Chairs in Oak and Leather, René Prou, France, circa 1930s

A handsome pair of French Art Deco tub chairs, attributed to René Prou, combining a sculptural solid oak frame with luxurious cream leather upholstery and contrast piping. Each chair features a gently curved barrel back that flows continuously into rolled arms, while the oak show-wood arm supports are cut through with an open, pierced slat motif — two vertical uprights bridged by a graceful curved bracket — a treatment closely associated with Prou's documented seating designs of the late 1920s and 1930s, in which pierced or cut-out geometric arm supports appear as a recurring, identifiable signature. The tapered, gently splayed legs continue the restrained geometry of the arms, giving the chairs a light, poised stance despite their generous seating proportions.

Upholstered in a soft cream/celadon leather with contrast white piping along all seams, the chairs balance comfort with the streamlined elegance typical of the finest French Art Deco club and salon seating — equally suited to a living room, library, or hotel lobby setting, and designed to be enjoyed as a pair or used individually as accent chairs.

René Prou (1889–1947) was one of the leading French decorators and furniture designers of the Art Deco period, celebrated for elegant, restrained interpretations of the style that balanced luxury materials with architectural clarity of form. Trained at the École Bernard-Palissy, he joined the design house Gouffé before becoming design director of Pomone, the decorating studio of the Bon Marché department store, in 1932. Prou was a member of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs and a major contributor to the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. He went on to become one of the most prolific interior designers of the French ocean liner era, decorating spaces aboard vessels including the Colombie and coordinating the interiors of the Champlain, alongside major commercial commissions such as the Mitsukoshi department stores in Tokyo and, in the United States, work on the Waldorf Astoria in collaboration with painter Josep Maria Sert.
A closely related oak armchair with pierced geometric arm supports — from the first-class correspondence room of the ocean liner Lafayette (1930) — is illustrated and captioned in Joëlle Pijaudier-Cabot and Sylvie Legrand-Rossi, René Prou: Entre Art Déco et Modernisme (Norma Éditions), p. 90, confirming Prou's consistent use of this open, pierced wood arm treatment across his documented seating designs. The present pair's construction and detailing align closely with this published example, supporting the attribution.