Snake Auction Observer: good furniture, undervalued, or eternal, all selected off LiveAuctioneers.com. This week—light on auctions with the short week, but some Cassina, Magistretti, Coalesse… Immediate auctions at the top, and Quick Hits at the bottom…
Auctions:
Branzi for Cassina Revers chair, side table, Kentucky: Can’t recall if I’ve written this one up, it’s a plain side table that looks half classic Cassina plastic/futurist and half Danish-leaning wood… and the chair that is the star. Close to some designs from the ‘80s… maybe Arad? A real nasty shape. Called the Revers, not Reverse; from 1993, by Andrea Branzi, the Milan based co-founder of Archizoom (the Superonda, Safari sofa), who ran the Domus Institute—cool—and made lots and lots of great items, incl. this perfect daybed for Memphis Milano. This is later work and ideal. It’s an A- piece: very good, less eternal than some other Branzis, and not as determined, but better than, well, quite a lot. Subtle enough, too—looks a bit ugly, then it looks better. Runs a couple hundred, often sold in lots; auction has some OK Jens Risom-adjacent work and two Copenhagen vases, one of which, linked, is identical in appearance to a set of ties Yohji Yamamoto produced in the 1990s. $250
Atelier/Cassina tufted club chair, settee, New Hampshire: A decent/wild Cassina/Atelier piece: Atelier, located in Long Island City, was for a while Cassina’s U.S. licensee, and then was purchased by Steelcase. There’s a Cassina tag on this, and it was made in Italy. It doesn’t look right at first: gilded, with all those different-sized tufts, and quite far off from what we normally associate with Cassina. It feels like a for-hire piece (maybe like Eastern Promises, the Cronenberg movie for which he did not write the script). Since it’s a club chair—designed in France in 1929, comfortable, minimal—and produced for a foreign market, it only needs to hew to a form. Club chairs are super defined. They all look like club chairs. Best ones are the slightly poppier ones: by Pierre Cardin (which I’ve written about here before)… and these, by Tobia Scarpa for Cassina. There are also some made by Ralph Lauren. Price doesn’t exist: most Cassina club chair auctions are for LC3s; Atelier doesn’t seem to have real history either. Still, priced fair. House also has Regency, great rugs, and some Shaker (boxes, pails, a bucket). $600
Sonneman for Kovacs Echoes of Vienna lamp, Fl.: Nice… 30s style with the visible grommets, one of the louder lamps by Robert Sonneman, who I haven’t written about in a while, but who I used to mention probably weekly. I still believe in him: his designs are both straightforward and dramatic, and they always pop up, and they’re always pretty cheap. They’re so much better than so much of what’s out there. This one has more going on than his other pieces. It’s super designed, and fits in, almost perfectly, with 1930s Deco looking-lamps like this thing. Hence the name, From 1980; price history is a mess, with one BidHaus auction being re-listed by my count 47 times. This one’s a deal, though. House also has a few more by Bob, and brag-worthy silverware. $125
Coalesse Hosu by Urquiola lounge chairs, Fl.: Advanced item from the house above; the most modern piece in the lot, and this week. By Patricia Urquiola, from Spain, born in the ‘60s; all the stuff she designs looks very new. Coalesse, founded in 2008, under Steelcase, has some hits… my favorite item of theirs is the Ripple seat by Laurinda Spear. The Hosu doesn’t have much auction history—a weird couch sold a bit ago for $550—but the chairs are the one. With the dark grey and inset cushions they resemble a car seat And not an old one. How does this happen? Looking at important furniture for years, from school through your career, moves a designer elsewhere. And people with money love cars. Still: said to be a lounge chair, and very simple. Would work with a lot of opposite ornamentation: baroque frames, gilded things, a Louis XIV chair, a Centopiedi, any of the items mentioned above. Everything else, though, has to work for this to be pulled off. $125
Vico Magistretti Veranda settee with chair, Fl., in-house shipping: I love this sofa; I sit on mine when I’m at home, and I bought it on LiveAuctioneers. Perhaps I will sell it? Perhaps I will not. Magistretti, of course, is a giant, an Italian architect and designer, best known for his Maralunga, or his Selene chair, and who did plates for Heller. Clearly perfect pieces of furniture like this don’t need much of a to-do: you just look, at length or over time, and then you understand. Same tech as the Maralunga (cushion curves down); has a tough high profile (necessary, IMO, with settees) and very visible, gaudy industrial legs. How does furniture canon work? This thing, to me, is Magistretti’s best sofa—but it’s not a household name. Maybe this is because the general consensus on furniture is very, very thin: We know and talk about a handful, a dozen, a couple scores of good items, but not everything else. So this stands out less. Still, things might be changing. This, with three seats, sold for $1,600 a bit ago; the settees hang around a couple thou. This one’s at $3,600, and well worth it. If you buy it, you can defray costs by unloading the chair. I’d say it would get about one third of the hammer .
Biedermeier center table, Glen Cove NY: Biedermeier is the first middle-class style of furniture there is: think of it as Ikea, or Eames, but from the 19th century. This is what chimney sweeps bought because they finally had some money. There is more Biedermeier than there are five cent stamps, and it’s a canopy term: a bunch of stuff from the era, with a premise of modesty, simplicity, moderation… sound familiar? It seems that everything specifically designed for middle class people is not supposed to be fun. (Wolfe wrote about this.) Maybe it’s because they are expected to just work. Still, quite decorative compared to stuff from our current era, even with so few lines. It’s the grain of the wood. Not all Biedermeier is good—I love this thing, but come on—and because of that, some of it must be. It’s the grain of the wood here, and the simple, contrasting legs. A similar one like this (without the tablecloth effect or a clawfoot) sold for $300. Silverware, jewels, fine affordable tables including this sharp Deco one, rugs, a Saarinen tulip table (marble top), some Ginori also on sale from this Long Island house. $175
Quick Hits:
Pair Hoffmann style deco campaign chairs, Fl., $75 (not like Hoffman at all)
Swid Powell Bob Morris “Camelot” pattern (gold cross) 18pc set, Fl., $50 (steal)
Bellini 405 Duc sofa for Cassina, Ill., $6,000 in-house shipping (worth a look)
Thonet naughahyde chair, IHS, NYC, $385 (who knew?)
Sottsass Ledersofa for Knoll, Germany, IHS, €800 (pictured… goated)
Magistretti Selene lucite chair, Glen Cove NY $50 (Ghost chair, but better)
Thanks for reading.
Snake