Snake Auction Observer 033: Perriand, Breuer daybed (?), Corbu, Rietveld world's sickest floor lamp, more
Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com. This week—seating, French stuff, canon stuff, a lamp that blows me away. Immediate auctions at the top, and quick hits at the bottom….
Housekeeping:
I’m presenting a talk at the Multiple Formats art book symposium in Boston on Friday (St. Patrick’s Day). Here is the information:
Shining Life will be tabling Saturday. I’ll have some Snake shirts (several existing designs) and new hats (new colors, never before sold). Swing by and bring me a Shamrock Shake—all the machines in New York (where I live) are down.
Auctions:
Perriand/Jeanneret Bahut No.2 cabinet '39-'45, LA: Always nice to see an exorbitantly priced canonical item, in this case a cabinet Charlotte Perriand and her sidekick Pierre Jeanneret worked on together. Almost primitive shape… CP went to Japan in ‘42, wonder if this was before or after. Thinking after. This piece fits into the high-value shit that Bonhams tends to sell in their LA auctions (Prouvé daybed, lots of nice planters; Wenger). Price history vague; one sold for about $14,000, five years ago… scant since. $40,000
Breuer daybed for Thonet, LA: Wild how much of a difference a couple extra feet of metal and leather can make. I wrote about Marcel Breuer’s Wassily last week (I think, look it up) and stopped short of saying that chair was overexposed—few who crow or comment about furniture in 2023 know anything, was my context—but it is. We know it’s overexposed... I mean, it goes without saying? But the reason why the Wassily is beyond everywhere now—like, doctor’s offices in Winnipeg—is because it’s so good. That’s the case for most other good furniture that some people may be sick of. Even that chick mirror by Sottsass. It was good. Then it went everywhere. That’s how Coca Cola and jeans work—why would furniture be any different? Anyways, this daybed is as good as any of Breuer’s designs and is better than the B3 because it’s longer. Looks otherworldly. Same house as above. I dug around for a while trying to find price history on this and there’s none. Went far down on completeds and nothing. House is selling two. Wild… we live in a golden age; $1,200
Rietveld zag chair, NY: What to say about this masterpiece? There are two ways to approach it. One is new: If you don’t know about Rietveld’s work, this chair is revelatory, with like, 700,000-year old lines. If you do know his work, then you know this chair is a century old and still looks like, on repeated viewings, that it’s from the future. An eternal concession… something out of time. This is a Cassina retro (after ‘73); prices on these run all over the place, a set of four with cushions sold for around $4,000 a couple years ago; price history before that is irrelevant. Who knew, thought more had sold. A pair that looks off is now on auction for $500; this is $1,300
Colombo Elda chair, NY: Important, difficult, obsequious chair, thing always reminds me of a biology drawing I saw in elementary school mapping out a person’s small and large intestines. The past seven versions of these sold for €4,800, $8,500, €5,500, $3,600, €2,200, €5,000, $4,000, all within the past couple years. The third and fourth most recent sales had black bases, the rest white. What does that mean? Well, they’re all in Europe. Most Joe Colombo furniture that isn’t the Boby cart tends to be. Wear on this is the best part; second best part is the black base. House also selling lots of Springer—looks good—and some silver kitchen articles among unfortunate paintings; $1,900
Corbusier armchairs, NJ: A minor pieces in Corbu’s corpus, not in terms of design, but reach, and mostly because pony hair Basculants lately get the reverse Predator treatment (ignored) in flea markets, art museums and so on. Basculant or LC1, neither named in the auction. Made in 1928... this house in New Jersey always seems have deals and steals, this week it’s no-designer furniture from a few eras (MCM, early ‘80s), though mostly duds. Prices vary on these, according to production: pre-’76 goes for the most, like $6K for two. Ones after that less, around $1,10 each. This one’s numbered and signed, but can’t make out the era… Looks decently old, though—worth cashing in on the pony hair before the rest of the world outside Miami comes around to it again; $325
Saporiti sofa, NJ (different auction): Another week, another mis-listed sofa. People love complaining about furniture being very expensive and all looking the same—those hillbillies don’t subscribe to my newsletter. The hillbillies in Rockaway, N.J. getting rid of this thing also didn’t title this item right, it’s a Wave, designed by Giovanni Offredi. I love the guy but he pretty much didn’t do anything else. Work drifts off the bulbous prime couches of a few years before (says ‘74 is the date here) presaging the more restrained and buttoned up designs that came out of other countries. These all run under $2,000—which is wild—this one is $500
Knoll butterfly chair, NJ: Some butterfly chairs rise above their competition; weak ones, which are most of them, have dilapidated frames. I think it’s the construction—I think the mid-period items are better. This specimen is in prime condition—legs look good—and the the wear on the corners, perversely, is what makes it. Look at that leather quality: it shines through even in the small screenshot I appended in this email. No tag photos, though. Butterflys run anywhere between $150 and$400 recently. Worth that, I’d say; $300
Gae Aulenti Pileo floor lamp, Long Island: Powerful and tough lamp, the best one on display on LA this week, and this month… and therefore just about the best way for anyone to spend their money in America this year. Aulenti’s work isn’t all tough (Pipistrello esp.) but this one is. The color is the key here—white and destroyed white (frozen cream color, or yellow)—and the shape looks like something out of an old sea lighthouse. But not in the old-timey way. It just looks quite modernly industrial. Modern work? Yeah, sure. Lamp is not confrontational, just immediate. What else is like that? Maybe watching a boxing match, or seeing a pyramid of McDonald’s hamburgers in an art gallery. Or the scene in Beau Travail where they push-hug each other, or one of the other scenes from that movie. We live in an age where little is known; only two have been auctions and sold in the past 17 years on this website, one, a couple of years ago, went for $2,600. Another, in 2015, fetched a third of that price.Auction is local, and mostly jewelry; $2,100
Quick hits:
Magistretti Veranda three-seat sofa, $200, NJ (wild shape, sleepy color)
Baughman sofa with Lenor Larsen upholstery, $2,700, NJ (gutter)
Afra & Tobia Scarpa 920 settée, $700, NJ (small and excellent
Four Thonet barrel-back black chairs from ‘70s, $120, NY (very low key)
Loewy DF2000 credenza, $300, Larchmont (severe steal)
Knoll Barcelona daybed, $1,000, San Rafael (well below retail)
Thanks for reading.
Snake