They're selling new made to order De Sede sofas now on Live Auctioneers (Late Nite Obs 103)
Plus a guide to Purple furniture and an alternative to TikTok magazine racks
Good Monday evening, this week a new development of auction houses acting as licensees and offering made-to-order new sofas at just about retail prices. Never seen that before. As well as the best of this week’s auction listings, contextualized and historicized (in terms of design, price). The items on the block that jump out to me: a selection of pottery/vases (20th c, modern… high level mostly), modern and avant lighting (some good pendants), a Rietveld-type chair (for $100), Sottsass jewelry and what seems to me the third-best barstool ever designed (after Gigi for Knoll and maybe Hansen/Panton box stools), plus an alternative to the TikTok magazine rack…
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People love this thing man there are like 1,000 videos about it… one I link to is also Italo
As well as good old American seating. But first:
Price Values
Here are the deals paying subscribers received last week, links are to the actual items:
Nanda Vigo lamp unsold, Tolomeo table 2K euro, Alex Julian perfect sofas $700 pair (pictured), brutalist chain tables $600 (Bruises), four Piretti Castelli chairs $650, Versace pillow $375 another for $400, van der Rohe coffee table $400, Barbaglia Dove lamp $150 (silly price), LV tie bag $175, Castle Molar chairs pair $3,400 (one runs that much), Boalum lamp (expensive actually), Offredi Paracarro table, Stilnovo U lamp (really good), $200, another vdR coffee table for $500, six caned Thonet Breuer chairs for $400 (total), a legit Perriand credenza for $1,000
Instrux on how to use Live Auctioneers here.
This week’s auctions:
Obs 103
Sem de L'Anverre for Zanotta vase, Indianapolis: Ends Tue… one of the better auctions for glassware I’ve seen recently; this vase in particular brings to mind the Pelota lamp (same angles, overhang), but done up less chintzy and more French and regal… the wine color. Does anyone do wine color as well as the French? I don’t know about the stegosaurus extras on the neck here but it’s fine. Barely see them. Zanotta is a very rewarding brand search… always yields a variety of both complementary and oppositional options—they aren’t a glassware company but they dealt in it for such a long time so there is some variety. No real price history (the only Zanotta vases that sell look like the Beherit from Berserk)—go figure, it’s also the only one on 1stDibs; there’s one by de L’anverre (no info on them) on eBay that looks so different from the one above.
The best deals and the items that jump out to me (aesthetically) are below the jump, though one more:
It is an Bitossi ceramic jar for Rosenthal Netter… digging into the provenance these date to the 1950s. RN imported Bitossi into the States—there’s not as much info, comparatively/generally, about designs and designers in the ceramic space as there is for bigger items. I believe this was by Aldo Londi (he did those cute birds on sticks; worked for Bitossi forever)… the one above (the auction) runs $2-300, there is a similar one on eBay for a couple hundred flat (auction is in Mississauga, approx. 500 km from Ottawa) and another one, also on eBay:
That is more Venus of Willendorf… wildly, wildly different with the colors. One is loud one is quiet. Shape speaks to Sottsass too (the Oman in particular), though I bet both ES and AL were schooled and eyeing the same classics.
Here are a few similar vases thru 1stDibs, for fair prices, all within the same rough Venn overlap of the ceramic and glassware above… things I would put on my shelf…:
Sommerso Murano vase $500
Ruscha West German ceramic vase $280 (40% off) (I love German pottery)
Another kraut vase $336
And below: couple dozen auctions if you feel like saving money or knowing more about design
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