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Design: Auction 070 - 10.12.2007

Auction No 70, 10 December 2007
Design

Post auction report

Pre-World War II design saw some very good results, with for instance an Eckart Muthesius’ armchair, 1931 bid up by two Munich collectors from €5,000 to €13,000. Klaus Grabe’s recliner is going, slightly above its estimate, for €7,500 to a Swiss gallery, and the female head from Josef Hartwig’s Bauhaus class will grace a German collection in future. A lamp by Marianne Brandt in a rare bronze execution made a surprising career: starting at €400, the hammer did not fall until €3,500. A good result was also recorded for a Jean Prouvé bureau, which was knocked down for €8,000, just over its estimate.

 

The highest prices achieved for 1950s and 1960s design were for Italian objects, although some German rarities also sold well. A Mauser writing desk was bid up from €2,000 to €5,200, and the rare Eiermann three-legged chair is going for €2,500 to a German museum. A German gallery acquired, Pietro Chiesa’s table lamp for €2,700, far in excess of the estimate, and, after a brief bidding battle, a gallery owner (who had made the trip over from New York specially) bought an occasional table by the same designer for €6,000. After Gio Ponti’s chest of drawers from the Hotel Parco dei Principi had fetched €13,500 three weeks’ ago at the Highlights of Design History auction, six hotel chairs fetched €4,500 and a dressing table plus chair €4,000 at the regular auction.

 

In the postmodern section, German furniture competed with the designs of the Italian Memphis Group. A chair by the designer trio Norbert Berghof, Michael Landes und Wolfgang Rang, with a starting price of €5,000, went for €8,000 to a German collector, and the matching set of four chairs for €8,000, a little below its estimate, to a New York gallery. Hans Hollein, associated for a time with the Memphis Group, came up with a design for a wristwatch in 1987, which now goes to a German collector for its estimated €2,500. A display cabinet, designed by George Sowden for Memphis in 1981, was sold at far above its estimate to a German collector for €4,200.