Snake Auction Observer 031
Book launch FRIDAY; Severe undervalued Paulin desk, Pesce, Soriana, Maralunga, and the best chair that nobody buys
Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com, with an emphasis this week on tables and important Italian furniture, much of it local to New York. Immediate auctions at the top, but first, housekeeping:
Housekeeping:
Book launch is FRIDAY. (Info and flier here.) Including the info one more time below for anyone who may have missed it. Hope to see some of you there—say hello if you roll. Scroll down past the post below from my Instagram to see what I look like.
I’ll have new hats at the thing.
Auctions:
Paulin for Baker table, South Bend, IHS: Unreal auction here, one of the very rare late-period tables designed by Pierre Paulin, around when he was making micro-lines of ornate furniture and sort of on the outside of the furniture establishment. I wrote about this period for GQ last summer—my favorite stuff from him iss from this era, esp. the Mitterand table. This one for Baker, is based on that Mitterand table—details are different; the OG was produced for the statesman’s office and then made, from what I remember, in the very low numbers, like a few dozen, almost custom made. (Paulin’s kid when I interviewed him said no one was really doing that then.) Baker made just about everything, including a line of “executive” Paulin office items, which includes chairs and another desk. Price history on this desk is in the $9,000 range, with the other Paulin Baker desk also going for around that. House has lots of wood, Pace, McCobb. A Snake Lock of the Week… and the most undervalued item I’ve seen on LiveAuctioneers in a year. $1,000
Pesce transformable mini table, NYC: The size of a mid-1990s Napalm Death album (Diatribes), this thing isn’t a piece of furniture but a nice trinket on which to place your keys, or maybe your eggs. The house is also selling paintings, Louis bags (nice ones), and some great Franz Wittmann Hochbarett chairs and settées. I think this baby is worth it only if bought at the introductory bid of $200—anything else is too much for the gag. Pesce’s enough of a genius that even the gag items downstream of his real work are worth considering. $200
Asti Trifoglio table for Stendig, NYC: Another from the house above, also ending on Tuesday. Asti designed the Zelda sofa, the ICM Boca cutlery set (owned by your humble narrator and written about here a half dozen times) and the Profiterole lamp, among others; his work’s heavy on metal and is fun and direct. Stendig (Charles) was a NYC-based importer who brought a number of genius pieces and important lines here from overseas; too many to list. (I like the Davis Allen Andover chair, which is just the right amount of hideous.) CS also did the calendar with the font people like. This piece… really good: many others are both chrome and marble; but with this one both materials are equally at the forefront. Also looks designed well after, or 35 years before its 1969 production date. Price history is scant and all Euro; one has sold domestic for $450 in 2015. Another Snake free for all that proves nobody knows anything and a possible steal at $100
Tobia Scarpa Soriana chairs, Fl: LA is lousy with Soriana chairs lately, I have about half a dozen in my upcoming watchlist and just as many have ended since New Year’s Eve. I don’t think the chairs are as strong a design item as Tobia Scarpa’s 925 chair, or the full sofas or settees—not wide enough, and too deep—but they’re far from second tier. These are great. Plus, reached enough of an ascendancy that they’re worth highlighting with an image and several informative and funny sentences. Price history’s high—$3,500 or so, per chair, since the pandemic. House doing one of those auctions full of old rich people dogshsit (paintings, grandma jewelry, nepotism melon ballers), and a couple of acceptable LC2 chairs; several rare rugs, a Daytona if I remember right and a few fine Louis duffels. $3,400
Thonet 511 armchair, NJ: Austrian chair from around 1904, less well known than the company’s (Gebrüder Thonet) 02 or 14 models. Still a giant; a wild item for the time—lots of lines, especially on the back of the frame. Thonets aren’t much discussed or thrown around in the zeitgeist, but their look allows them to work well as an accent chair. The simple wood furniture that’s popular now less gussied up than this one, and the fancy stuff is too fancy. House has lots of great stuff, including this Holly Hunt Occasional table that is worth stopping before and contemplating. Price history in the 2 or 3 large; not bad right now at $500
Magistretti Maralunga sofa, NJ: Definitely a sofa that will end up being bought and re-sold on a tri-state Instagram furniture account unless a loyal Snake reader buys it; the advantage to this particular item is the very precise nearly tacky upholstery that to me screams late ‘80s or early ‘90s. The house says it’s from ‘73, but that probably only refers to the date of design of the couch. This is Vico M.’s most popular couch, for sure; the Maralunga brings up the rear. The good, almost louche colors on the Maralunga only seem to get sold overseas—price history for all models, even the boring ones, is pretty European as well. Same house as above; steal at $500
Mourgue Bouloum chair, NJ: Another from the Rago NJ auction, Bouloums are one of, to me, the real mysteries in furniture right now. No one outside this humble newsletter discusses them, they don’t go for money—$700, $1,300 or so the past couple of years—yet they’re perfectly and loudly designed and smack in the wheelhouse of the eye-catching aesthetic that has taken on as of late. How to explain this discrepancy? There are two arguments. One is that no one knows anything substantial about furniture, and so second-tier famous but first-tier designed items, like this, are ignored. The second is that there is such a glut of beautiful stuff being sold every week that occasionally—often—perfect items like this slip through the cracks. Olivier Mourgue, this chair’s designer, did the Djinn chairs, which were used in 2001…. there’s a fully fiberglass Bouloum, produced by Airborne, a Montreal company in 1969; Arconas, a company from Mississauga (which is also in Canada) produced the Bouloums a few years after that. Designed to be stacked; unreal, $950
Knoll Hardoy butterfly chair, NJ: This is the best type of auction (not item; auction), a piece of furniture by a big canonical producer that doesn’t go for a grip to begin with (price history lately around $500, often less) but in dogshit condition, which means even more of a deal. No-brainer buy here if you have a deck or if you simply are a person with terrible bodily hygiene and want to sit somewhere filthy. Someone with good leather oil and an upholsterer contact is the more reasonable success case. Worth mentioning that the designer’s middle name is Ferrari—just like meHouse also selling dozens of model trains, a Dead Kenneys “In God We Trust” poster (sealed), baseball stuff, Moe Howard stationary, an Elvis poster. The best kind of auction... $20
Michele de Lucchi Memphis chairs, LI: Among my favorite plain office chairs, close to the Belotti Spaghetti, or Herbst’s Sandows (named after Eugen?) these toy with the form—you put your ass on color and air here and not a big chunk of wood—and sit in the rarefied half-indoor, half-outdoor category. Weird information on this one, though, not sure these chairs are produced by Memphis or designed by de Lucchi. Lot simpler than most Memphis furniture; de Lucchi also did the Oceanic Memphis lamp (you’ve seen it) and some of the Plissé kitchen accessories they sell at the MoMA store—not super in line with this. Myself? Holding out for a Michael Graves toaster. Might be what the auction advertises, though at only $300, it’s not important who made it.
Zanotta Milo mirror, Long Island: Shaped like the Venus de Milo (but missing her head), a treat. Makes one wonder why there are so few anthropomorphic mirrors. There’s the Cardin Narciso mirror for Acerbis, this, and let’s say a few others floating around in the either. Really, not many. Zanotta has a hall of fame resume—the Willie Landels Throw Away chair is a favorite—and price history here is a decade ago domestic sale for $300. Semi-local, same house as above (plus another in yellow), some art books, Leica bodies, rugs, a Martin guitar. $100
Quick hits:
D’urso for Knoll table NYC $450 wrote about before
Cassina cognac-colored 80s LC3 chair, Fl., $2,600 a good color
Set of six Bellini cab chairs, several colors, $400 great (all end today)
Paulin pumpkin sofa, $2K, NJ white and boring which some ppl like
Marrell tableware, NJ $50 kitschy but worth a flyer
Loewy white vanity NJ $500 perfect piece; rare in all white
Thanks for reading. Hope to see people on Friday.
Snake