Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com, with an emphasis this week on auctions in, around New York and Italian design. Immediate auctions at the top.
Auctions:
Satin display pedestal, Cardin-style, PA: Nice louche/loud gold column here, ending Tuesday—weird time for an auction to end—115 miles from New York (from my house specifically). Not many designer columns per se, since it’s so purely a design item—how can you put a stamp on something that’s literally a geometric shape—but one absolutely worth having in the house if the basics (sofa, lamp, table, chair) are all there and high level. Offers a lot of room to maneuver—put your keys on it. Auction house has some decent ones, lots of non-designer “in manner of” stuff from midcentury (Chandigarh chairs, Paul Evans console, glass Fabio Lenci chair; all fake, all decent, all well made since they’re old) plus the science museum thing that gives people with straight hair spiky hair on touch, the bizarro Baughman bench but a chair, a lot of three Artemide lamps, Eames exec chairs (with white arms; new to me) and some very good cutlery, esp. this set from Venturi. Chrome, marble, etc. similar pedestals run in the $300s. $100
Magistretti for Artemide table, Bellini Heller chair, PA: Same house as above, rare lot; I have this table in white more or less and it’s just about perfect; black seems even better because it’s less likely to dust, stain…. there’s a caraway seed wedged in mine that I need the jaws of life to remove. Rare lot as in I never see items tossed together really, or not furniture at least—easier to find a Pierre Cardin mirror for cheap than two decent items together for a respectable price. Magistretti, of course, is a giant, made a number of couches, chairs, tables (Maralunga, Gaudi, Edison, Veranda), Bellini did the Camaleonda, but also the Amanta and more… this stool is called Heller. It is just OK. Still, a very good deal if it stays in this range; house sold the same lot last year for $325; fool didn’t pay. Hellers don’t go for much at auction; this table doesn’t either, but should. $275
Orix Molteni bar, PA: What about Lord Protect Me From What I Want Morrissey Jenny Holzer tee-shirt, except it says “Protect me from what I want with the exception of mislisted auctions,” or, say, perhaps, unpasteurized milk, or un-remastered Cannibal Corpse recordings on streaming services… but what a redundancy that would be. This table is actually a Molteni, by Orix, an Italian company from the ‘70s that didn’t make many items, not an Oryk for Molten as written in the auction… designed by Vittorio Parigi and Nani Prina… this is a bar… the desk has an antenna and a different base. Desk is better; this one is a little campy, but so is having a bar cart... why not lean into it, then? No real price—Orixes don’t really sell in North America; they’re all overseas. Now and then there is an odd $2200 Etsy listing… bars, when they list, go for a bit less. Potential steal here… what does Holzer know—LA’s search feature came up with the item even with the misspelling. Deep. $475
Suite of auctions on Phillips, good stuff, NYC: Phillips, the venerable house, is selling a lot of beyond-worth it, upper tier investment pieces. Not all are expensive, but many are very good. Only thing about this auction is the bids can’t be made through LA—they have to be done through Phillips. A bit extra work, but it’s local, at least. These, and a very very good Frank Lloyd Wright stool stand out:
Pesce vase, $450—tougher and tougher, rightly, to acquire a Pesce for under a G; I think his work might describe and presage the age we are living in better than any other artist. His works, big or small, are all on the same level. Vase is a bit little but a good place to start.
Sottsass Callimaco lamp, $900—I feel this might go over Phillips’ $1500 estimate, but then again, over the past couple of years one and a couple of these have sold for that price. This lamp gets better and better as time goes on. Very brutal, simple and almost offensive. I go back to this Jim Walrod interview where he said it all about Sottsass. True…
Superstudio Gherpe lamp, $1700—this is just one of the best things ever designed; but I’ll be frank it only works in this color. (Others are too much.) It works perfectly with a room set up adjacent to this style—read up on Superstudio if you can, I’ll Lore them (and others) soon, but they were a very necessary rebuke to design in the 60s/70s—but I think the see-through/jaunty ideas here could make it work against a Louis XIV, bentwood, whatever. Antipodal. One of the best, rarely see these at auction domestic, and with Phillips you know you’re getting the real crap.
Nakashima dining room table, $1,600 (pictured)—you have to be either subscribed to this newsletter or illuminati or banging a carpenter to get a dining room table for under $6,000, and only one of these paths contains any dignity… plus once they let you in to the illuminati you have to sign a pact that you overspend when they tell you. This DR table isn’t a rectangle, but big circle. Rare to see Nakashima selling out of New York—much less for a decent price. He’s the obvious and immediate (and heightened) choice if you want wood. But who knew you could get this table like that? Quieter than most of his pieces. Easy decision, house has a few other Georgies, too, but nothing I like as much as this one. Possible steal.
Narciso mirror, $1,000—this is really the best-designed mirror ever made; I won one a while ago (I am sure I wrote about it here) and before payment the seller said it was broken and they couldn’t ship it to me, and when I asked for photos they said that the camera broke and so they couldn’t take photos. Sometimes the dog eats the auctioneer’s homework—a sign you’re doing it right. (I won it for so little money it would have sent the whole website into receivership.) Beware the levels of deceit and subterfuge that find you when you live on the edge of design expertise. This lamp was designed by Claudio Platania (Italian) for Acerbis for Pierre Cardin ages ago; digging around LA you’ll see a bunch of great photos of people taking photos of themselves in the lamps. Runs anywhere under 2 large on auction sites and double that or more on 1stDibs and the like. I keep waiting for these to be omnipresent and everywhere, but that is hard for furniture since, even with a site like LA, it’s a couple steps to get a mirror into your house. For a split second I was upset the mirror I won cheap I didn’t get but got over it quick; there really is (and I’m not just saying this) a neverending firehose supply of good furniture for cheap out there. And if you want to spend money there’s even more. It is pretty easy, you just need to do a bit of work. Or subscribe. The decisions on what to buy ultimately need to be made in private and with confidence. Again… I could write about what it all means... In a world with a glut of life-affirming material possessions that are so easy to get you have plenty of time left over for the real things in life (working out, reading), the value of a great thing is a bit looser and more relaxed; Snake’s Lock of the Week.
Sottsass typewriter, $500—doesn’t get better than this. But it’s too expensive.
Mercatali/Pedrizzetti Eulesi lamp, PA: From day 2 of the first auction mentioned… never seen this one before, very good… Mercatali and Pedrizzetti appeared to have worked together for about a decade (78-88), designed this lamp (only?) as well as faucets, door handles:
Which exist at a higher level. There’s that Bill Parcells line about offensive linemen that applies. You just crack open another can of brilliant Italian lighting designers. Like I said, never-ending supply. Clicking through to the auction reveals an unfortunate usage of Campbell soup in the auction photo for scale, instead of a can of Coke:
Which should be standard. Other Eulesi lamps run in the low hundreds if that, they show up about once every couple of years. Perfect; $100
Monnet coffee table, Italy, IHS: I wrote about this one—not only that, I named it an SLOTW—in an earlier letter; it ended around 700, others ended at 5… this could go below that. It’s a perfect table and a deal. Why don’t stores have these? Not sure. Only a few stores have hired me to do their design. Fix that today. House (Jasper) has lots of dogshit, but some hits, including this very decent couch, some Keith Haring moshing dog bookends, an Italian Poul Cadovius type wall storage system (very incredible), and enough statues to sink a fishing boat. $260
Calvin Klein Swid Powell tray, New Windsor NY: The Klein Powell overlap is a favorite here; this tray is wood and looks like a plastic Heller Vignelli plate, to me this collaboration seemed to launch Calvin Klein from something doing just clothes (and scanties) to a lifestyle/junior Ralph-type thing. Klein-Swid doesn’t sell for a lot (full sets went for <$100 just a couple years ago), though it’s more expensive lately. House has mostly grandma dogshit, but also a couple of electric guitars (I love live music). $30
Quick hits:
White Boby Trolley, with the signature, Bieffeplast, PA, $150
Paulin Artifort big tulip chair, PA, $500 (severe steal)
Pearsall model 102 sofa, PA, $2,100 (very serviceable MCM sofa)
Kartell Stoppino magazine rack, PA, $50 (classic; brown; steal)
Saporiti 2-piece huge sectional, PA, $200 (could be special; steal)
FLW two-part table, NYC $400 (super deal; house also selling several Geoffrey Beene mannequins)
Piretti for Castelli folding table, Detroit, $250 (very good)
Red Boby cart, signature, $135 flat domestic ship, GA, $150 (fair)
Borsani school chairs, Italy IHS $130 (not bad)
Full Camaleonda sofa, huge, NYC, $3900 (orange… cheap)
Thanks for reading.
Snake