Design · Auction
Christie's Anthology of Design, Led by Lalanne's Sheep
More than 100 objects, one transatlantic collector and three woolly sheep that once belonged to Alexandre Iolas. Christie's New York offers Anthology of Design on 9 December.
Christie's has announced one of the more intriguing design sales of the season. Anthology of Design: Masterworks from a French-American Collection will be offered as a single-owner sale at Christie's New York on 9 December. One transatlantic collector built it over more than twenty years, and it runs to more than 100 objects. The auction house describes them as chosen for rarity, integrity of form and exceptional provenance, and the roll call bears that out: François-Xavier Lalanne, Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Ron Arad, Ettore Sottsass and the Giacomettis.
What makes the sale worth reading for anyone who lives with design, rather than simply buying it, is the collector's timing. According to Christie's, he acquired the best names before they were as coveted as they are today. More than twenty years of buying early is a portrait of an eye, not of a budget, and that is what a single-owner sale really shows.
Three sheep with a pedigree
The top lot is a historic set of three Moutons de Laine by François-Xavier Lalanne, from the second flock of sheep the French artist created in the mid-1960s. Their history reads like a chapter of postwar art. The trio once belonged to the gallerist Alexandre Iolas and stood in the first exhibition of the Lalannes ever held in the United States, at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1967. Christie's expects them to achieve $3 to 5 million.
Each sheep measures 89 by 102 by 46 centimetres and is made of wool, patinated bronze, patinated aluminium and painted wood. That mixture is the whole wit of Lalanne: a sculpture you can sit on, a piece of furniture that looks back at you. Whether the Moutons belong in a sculpture catalogue or a design catalogue is a question collectors still enjoy. The honest answer is the living room.
Perriand, Prouvé and a bicycle
The second headline belongs to Charlotte Perriand. Her Table de Luxe à rallonge mécanique was conceived for the founding exhibition of the U.A.M., the Union des Artistes Modernes, in 1930. Christie's estimates it at $600,000 to 800,000.
Jean Prouvé is represented by a group of objects whose provenance traces back to the Prouvé family. The most charming of them is not furniture at all: a bicycle from around 1941 by Prouvé, estimated at $60,000 to 80,000, offered together with the corresponding trailer that was attached to the bicycle Prouvé owned. Christie's reads the pair as engineering applied not to a chair but to the mechanics of daily life, which is a fair description of how Prouvé thought about everything.
The transatlantic spirit and universal appeal of the collection shines through.
Daphne Riou, Global Co-Head of Design, Christie's
Provenance as a second signature
The rest of the list keeps returning to one idea: objects whose former owners are part of the story. A Breuer lounge chair comes from the former collection of Peggy Guggenheim. A rare table by the Eames comes from their personal collection. An ensemble of ceramics by Hans Coper and Lucie Rie traces back to the important Lucie Rie, Hans Coper exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 1967.
For a design object, provenance does what a signature does for a painting. It settles questions of authenticity, it fixes a piece in a moment, and it explains why two examples of the same model can sit far apart in an estimate.
Where to see it
Before the sale, selected works will travel. They will be on view in Tokyo from 4 to 6 November and in Paris from 19 to 24 November. In New York, highlights will be shown during the Fall Marquee Week exhibition, and the full collection will be on view ahead of the December sale.
