Snake Auction Nite Observer 018
SNAKE BOOK IN OCTOBER; Many items ending Tuesday... Camaleonda, De Sede, Sottsass, Cassina, Asti, rare wood
LATE NIGHT Snake Auction Observer: a score-ish of good furniture, selected off LiveAuctioneers.com, with an emphasis this week on 80s Italian, vases, and some nice hauls from Los Angeles. Several auctions ending in the morning, so letting it rip.
Auctions ending soonest first. Instructions on using LA in older letters. Feedback is welcome—if you’re looking for a certain style or piece, hit me up.
Housekeeping:
The book of SNAKE newsletters was sent to the printer today. It looks really good. It will be out at the NEW YORK ART BOOK FAIR on OCTOBER 13-16 2022 at the SHINING LIFE TABLE. Online orders around then.
More info:
Even more info: I’ve been working on this book for a few years and I hope that everyone likes it. I don’t brag. So when I say it will be a masterpiece that’s because it will be.
Auctions:
FLW cherry dining table for Cassina (1990), CT: I’d like one of the legacies of these new weekly letters to be a reevaluation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s industrial design. Maybe returns him to design dominance, too. His best pieces are modern, minimal, direct, and outré. This is an Allen table, which went in the house Frankie (a statist) designed for the thusly named Kansas governor a century ago… Cassina Allens run in the four figures minimum, some sold for $8,000 as recently as a couple years ago; they run $20,000 on 1stDibs. Steal at $500, can’t get a dining room table for under 2 large. House has a great Paul Evans credenza (for $$$), the matching chairs to this table, some burl/Regency Baughman, a Venturi Knoll chair (goat) and enough bad art to sink the Titanic. Ending Tuesday AM
Vase round-up:
Same house has a handful of great vases. They are exciting and colorful. Personal favorites among the 91 vases are pictured. Sergio Asti for Superego SARNATH vase with a typical brilliant Italian modern corkscrew design, three brutal square ones from Angelo Mangiarotti (for Fratelli Brambilla), and the Alfredo Barbini glass on the right that is organic, light and warm. Most Astis for Superego don’t sell, Mangiarotti’s furniture goes for more than his vases and Barbinis are all over the place. Also more Astis and a Sottsass in there. Priced at $100, $475 and $50, making the Asti the Snake Lock of the Week, and the Barbini a deal. Ending Tuesday AM
Offredi Saporiti pomo freedom table, Indiana, in-house shipping: An almost Noguchi-like shape on this thing (the curve) that breaks down the distinctions between mid-modern and wild-ass Italian; Offredi is a Snake fav and most Saporiti commands a consider severely order. This table sold for $1,600 this year. Auction ends today, has lots of good wood (Probber, McCobb, Evans) a mind-blowing Pierre Paulin dining table that I’ve never seen or heard of before, plenty of Regency (a Borsani credenza, Kagan chairs, a Frankl table, others). Man’s search for furniture…? $400, Ending Tuesday
McCobb origami chair, Indiana, IHS: McCobb’s one of those cross-age designers where you can see both future and past in his work, depending where you come from. If you’re strict mid-mod his pieces are wild, if you like the shaggy stuff, McCobb reins it in. The Origami might be the best molded plastic chair, beating the Eames side. It’s very organic, normal and super loud. Fair price at $400, as you can sometimes find pairs around $700. Ending Tuesday
Thonet-style sewing chair, flat shipping, Portugal: Much of furniture’s cost is tied to provenance: if it’s on the floor at a buzzed-about store, you pay more, if it’s in the middle of nowhere at some toothless peckerwood’s flea market booth (which is where the store people bought it from), you pay less. There is also a third path, where the consumer figures out what these free radical items are and pays less. Perfect chair, probs not a Thonet (there are an endless amount, but can’t conclude from the photos), but may be prewar (and so it’s lasted this long). Possible deal at $1
Bentwood rocking chair, Philly: No designer on this, but to my eye it sits somewhere between Wendell Castle, Olivier Mourgue’s Boulum lounge (goated) and a Verner Panton that’s also on auction now (mid). Nice wood grain, beautiful lines. Not cheap, $800, but approached as a retail item it’s not bad. The extra price at retail is for convenience, in an auction, it’s for quality or if it’s sui generis. That’s the case here. Ending today
Wolfgang Hoffman deco table, Santa Fe: A perfect minimal side table, these sell all over the place. Auction has lots of photos, and a lot of wood, best of which is a pair of Niels Moeller chairs that are new to me and encapsulate the Copenhagen ideal. Fair price at $300
No brainer Los Angeles full furniture upgrade:
A round-up from a couple of Los Angeles auction houses of fine furniture, much of it from the 70s, all priced quite fairly, some legitimately cheap. Highlights include:
a very sober De Sede red leather loveseat (not pictured) that can go with most things; past De Sede loveseats auction around $1,000. $300
an Ernst Luthy for De Sede “Sitting Bull” chair/ottoman, new to me with a much rawer seam pattern than most De Sedes on auction, and an elegant nearly Margiela for Hermes color scheme; a Luthy last year sold for $5,000. $1,500
a pair of Voyage Immobile chairs for Roche Bobois that are built like the Levantine single-bed collapsible nap semi-sofas that litter the Middle East, very muted and summery, feel sleepy; one sold for $1,700, and a sectional made up of six for much more. $1,500
a Rodolfo Bonetto boomerang modular sofa (pictured) for Flexform; Bonetto is full of hits and never gets written about; these haven’t sold before. $1,900
Two collaborative Roche Bobois fashion sofas, emphasis here on fabric, both of which have a bit of a floor to them and are massive: the Kenzo is a little bit more tacky than the Missoni; only one Kenzo’s sold, for $13,000 while a bunch of Missonis have, mostly for more. $5,500; $3,750, respectively.
a Loewy credenza (same color as mine) and a bed (queen size, silver/grey). I never get sick of looking at that bed. $1,300; $500
Quick hits:
FLW etagere (shelves) in-house shipping, IN, $1,000
Loewy twin beds (for the trad Peater), IHS, IN, $500
Peter Shire (maybe?) sculpture, CT, $100 Shire experts mount up
Mendini “Beherit*” vase, CT $125
Knoll tulip type table, $10, CT steal if you don’t care about provenance
Artemide, Sonneman lamp lot $50 NC possible steal
De Sede massive sectional (semi-beat, but a deal), $1,500, LA
Cool Gio Ponti Cado-type wall storage unit $6,000, LA wood, pitch perfect
Colombo Coupe wall light (goat), $500, LA
25 24 Pierre Paulin lighters tables, $1,000 LA possible steal
Huge five-part Cassina sectional (Bellini, LeMura) $5,000, LA
Massive Camaleonda, $6,500, LA
Thanks for reading — buy my book when it comes out in October.
SNAKE
*Beherit Berserk, not the band