: Carlo Mollino's 1949 table achieved $3,824,000 at Christie's June
9 sale of important Twentieth Century decorative art and design,
establishing a new world auction record for a piece of Twentieth
Century furniture.
The table's staggering price was made against a presale estimate
of $150/200,000. It was bought by a private collector after a
protracted auction battle with another determined bidder in the
saleroom at Christie's Rockefeller. The result almost doubles the
previous world auction record of $1,876,000 - also set at
Christie's New York in December 2000 - for "Tardieu," a chromed
metal and lacquer desk by Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, designed in
1929.
The overall total of the sales at Christie's, including important
Tiffany, was $10,737,080.
A complete report will appear in a future issue.
