Observer 128: How to get four Bertoia chairs for the price of 2 1/2
Enough Swiss planters and goated-tier leather sofas to sink a battleship
Shabbat Shalom and happy Sukkot. A bit of housekeeping:
I’m featured in Kelsey Keith’s Ground Condition talking about SAUNAS: the true link between health and design. Check it out:
It’s a real lengthy and fun discussion. Consider subscribing to her excellent newsletter.
On my HEALTH Substack this week, I wrote about probiotic drinks and demon sugar. I write SNAKE SUPER HEALTH regularly, as regularly as this one. Here is the latest:
And my Dwell column about public domain furniture just came out today. In it I report on what happens, exactly, in the market, when an artist or designer’s copyright runs out? It’s fascinating.
Anyways, thanks for taking a look. And now, onto the FURNITURE.
GUEST Retail corner
Today’s CONTINENTAL GUEST retail corner focuses on EURO retail—the best of the best—and comes from Renata Mosci Sanfourche, who writes the new and burgeoning design newsletter Rue de Chabrol—Paris-based. Check her out:
Renata: European retail is a whole other ball game. I spent ten years in New York before moving to Paris and I miss every store I used to browse in America. But nothing compares to the new set of items you can (mostly) only find here. Here are 7 European retail picks:
Astier de Villate coffee cups—it doesn’t get more French than a stamped face on your morning porcelain espresso cup.
Vadim Androusov sconce—I want to look at her every day… and also this André Arbus desk—from the 1940s… and nearly every other item at Jacques Lacoste: expensive but worth looking at.
Rose Uniacke bone combs—beautiful.
Syrie Maugham urn—from the 1940s, at Mathivet, a galerie in Paris’ 6th.
Ecart Kraft lamp—hard to beat.
Curaprox Toothbrush—there was a time when you could only buy these Swiss guys in Europe, but you can get them everywhere now. It’s not just the color combinations—these may change your life. If you want to splurge, some people swear by the Buly 1803 carbon.
Liwan Towels—don’t visit Paris without going to Liwan, where everything is handmade and one-of-a-kind. The best towels.
Obs. 128:
These four Rinaldi chairs for Rima Padova, auctioning in California Saturday sit in a unique place in the design space, and a vaunted one: they have a held back Frenchness to them, a luxuriousness and a tact, an officine energy—ils ressemblent quelque chose qu’on voit dans un bureau—while hewing to an aesthetic that’s more… elegant and feminine. Are these more chairs like this? Indeed, many by Gastone Rinaldi (lawyer, went into design… which explains the officiousness). Here are some strong ones on retail, all accessible:
The same ones as above, but darker.
A shorter-back model with identical legs.
The Sabrina for Rima Padova—same chrome legs but reversed, sort of an open bracket.
All very anonymous, open, malleable, but with a point of view. One thing nice about these chairs—though especially the auction pieces—beyond their aesthetic is their function as both an office and dining piece… skirting the line between the two worlds. The chrome does that… one sees dining table set-ups with chairs in magazines that have the Sabrina, but sans cushion.
Anyways, a futuristic sampling of a healthy auction that’s heavy on very quality pre-MCM stuff (1930s; much of it wood, much of it organic… warm and inviting) the best of which I curate below the jump.
Big font—below—you—will—read—and—see—100 curated pieces of design, across all spectra: sofas, lamps, storage, pots and planters, some settees, the best would-be Ikea piece I’ve seen (actually), pieces running from the 1930s until 2001-ish, all of which are worth buying or knowing about.
stools, coffee tables with an ice bucket in there (1985 style Bond trader/Italian disco producer style), extendable dining tables, a perfect dining table, high back chairs, some Bertoia, some Saporiti, some Memphis, some van der Rohe, a Chiclet ripoff (that is more elegant), a real good 2 pixel quality facebook marketplace photo, a chandelier less than the cost of popcorn at the movies, some futiristic Italian office chairs, and a guide to identifying real KNOLL furniture. Plus a massive midwest auction, action on the west coast, and the usual assortment of under-the-radar mislisted/incorrectly listed auctions, designer collectibles and the like.
