Stools are one of the oldest items of furniture known to humankind, dating back to Roman times and beyond. But what is the ideal stool, exactly? Should it be short and squat? Is it allowed to have a back – or arms? These and other questions come to mind at the sight of Philippe Starck’s WW stool in the window of De Vere’s on Kildare Street. It appears to be just perched there for a minute or two, like some exotic insect, before heading off – on ridiculously stylish cast aluminium tippytoes – into the streets of Dublin.
And here’s another question. Can you actually sit on it? “I’ve tried. It’s not easy,” says Rory Guthrie of De Vere’s.
This radical and remarkable stool, which comes under the hammer at De Vere’s Design Auction on Tuesday, (lot 39, €500-€700) was designed for the film director Wim Wenders in 1990 as part of what must have been a pretty snazzy office suite. Starck was then one of the most celebrated designers in Europe, having completed his work on Cafe Costes in Paris, given the Élysée Palace a revamp at the request of President François Mitterrand, and whipped up the iconic Juicy Salif lemon squeezer for Alessi.
The WW stool is no longer in production, so it’s officially a collector’s item – as are many of the 200 pieces in this wide-ranging sale, which also features work by such big names in mid-century furniture design as Eero Saarinen (lot 23, elliptical tulip table, €800-€1,200) and Charles and Ray Eames (lot 31, the EA216 soft chair, €400-€600).
Lot 41 (€400-€600) is another eye-catching chair, the Ota Otanek chair by the Czech architect and designer Borek Sipek, in wood, copper and steel. “It’s a limited edition piece,” says Guthrie. “It wouldn’t be a chair you might sit on every day – but you’d be happy to look at it.”
Danish buys
At the opposite end of the comfort scale is a 1978 chair from the Danish designer Niels Moller, one of a set of eight ( €1,500-€2,500). “It’s in rosewood, which is a lovely tactile wood, it’s extremely solid and will take any weight yet it looks light – and, in fact, is light,” says Guthrie. These rosewood chairs, along with a rosewood dining table (lot 25, €800-€1,200) made their way to Wexford from Denmark in the 1960s. “Getting this furniture to Ireland in those days was quite a feat. That’s why there’s not very many sets like this from that period.”
There are a number of Danish sideboards and cabinets in the sale. Lot 8 (€1,500-€2,000) is a sleek sideboard with tapering legs and discreetly curved handles on the central doors; lot 139 (€500-€700) is an upright cabinet whose doors open to reveal a series of practical shelves inside. “The Danes are all about clean lines and simplicity,” Guthrie says. “For them, form follows function. It reminds me of Georgian furniture, where you have everything from sideboards to wine coolers and everything has its use, but everything also features really high-quality cabinetmaking.”
For those who prefer a bit of bling in their interiors, the sale contains plenty of pieces of a more exuberant nature. “The chrome touches are typical of 1970s French and Italian furniture, they just couldn’t resist a bit of gilding,” Guthrie says. With its canted gilt metal corners and central well for storing ice, Willy Rizzo’s witty cocktail table (lot 27, €1,000-€1,500) fits that particular bill in style, as do a pair of art deco gilt framed circular mirrors (lot 21, €1,200-€1,600) or the lollipop pinks and yellows of Olivier Villatte’s Memphis lamps (lot 50, €200-€300).
Irish design
Some important names in the ever-evolving story of Irish design since the 1960s are also in evidence. Patrick Scott's mammoth 2.4m wide, intensely-coloured Rainbow Rug was made by V'Soske Joyce for Kilkenny Design (lot 61, €4,000-€6,000). A gold painting by Scott is the most expensive item in the auction (lot 62, €10,000-€15,000) but there's also a selection of paintings by contemporary artists such as Neil Shawcross, Sean Scully and Felim Egan, all from a corporate collection and some priced as modestly as €300. Three Emmet Kane "crocks" in burr oak have estimates between €600 and €1,500 (lots 133, 134 and 135) and Sara Flynn's Thrown and Altered vessel (lot 136) has an estimate of €800-€1,000. Lot 40 (€6,000-€9,000) is an early chair by Joseph Walsh – it dates from the 1980s – while Shane Holland's undulating wave-form Ruray desk lamp (lot 157, €200-€300) won an IDEA design award in 2011.
It’s just one of a number of seriously cool lighting pieces, that include the polished metal “witches’ hat” pendant by Danish designers Fog and Morup (lot 145, €300-€500) to the Z table lamp designed for Philips by Louis Kalff (lot 149, €700-€900). All the lamps are, of course, in perfect working order.
“There are some very affordable pieces here, and they’re all in perfect nick – they have to be, or we wouldn’t include them,” says Guthrie. And because mid-century furniture is increasingly sought after by collectors, he adds, they’ll hold their value too.
There’s even something in this sale for those who don’t have room for any full-sized mid-century furniture, in the shape of a collection of desk-top miniatures of classic designs (lots 192 and 193, each €50-€100). Or how about a double lot (lot 181, €300-€500) comprising Starck’s Max le Chinois colander and his Hot Bertaa kettle? The colander is still being manufactured by Alessi; the kettle, which turned out to be more sculptural than practical, definitely isn’t. Still, like that oh-so-desirable stool, it would make a great talking point in anybody’s kitchen.
De Vere's, 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Design Auction at the Royal College of Physicians, Kildare Street, Tuesday May 22nd, 6pm. See deveres.ie
