TWO PIECES of furniture made by the leading 20th-century Irish designer Eileen Gray are expected to sell for millions of dollars in New York tonight.
Fine art auctioneers Christie’s said the two lots – an armchair and a painted wood screen – have a combined estimate of $4 million. But experts believe the price of the armchair could reach “tens of millions of dollars”.
Last year, in Paris, a single chair by the Enniscorthy, Co Wexford-born architect and furniture designer was sold by Christie’s for the extraordinary sum of €21.9 million.
Fauteil aux Dragons(the Dragons' Chair), a leather armchair with lacquered wood arms, established a record price for a piece of 20th-century furniture. It had been in the collection of the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé.
The chair to be sold at tonight’s auction in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Plaza is called Sirène and is described as “a lacquered and painted beech armchair”.
The chair, which is 34½ inches wide and 27 inches high, is owned by a private American collector in Colorado. It was made in Paris between 1917-1919 and, according to the catalogue: “This imposing armchair, with its symbolist figurative motif, its sensual lines and rich lacquer surface, exemplifies the first chapter of Eileen Gray’s career, as a creator of luxurious and exotic furnishings.”
Despite last year’s sale, the chair has a top estimate of just $3 million. Jennifer Goff, curator of furniture at the National Museum of Ireland and Ireland’s leading expert on Eileen Gray, said the chair was even more desirable than the Dragons’ Chair and “a lot more elegant”.
The museum’s director, Dr Pat Wallace, confirmed that the State would not be bidding in New York tonight because Ireland does not have the funds and “could not afford to enter an international bidding war”. However, he added: “If a wealthy Irish benefactor would like to buy the chair for the museum I’ll put it on public display before Christmas.”
Christie’s said the second item by Eileen Gray for sale was a screen, made in 1923 from painted wood panels, which has a top estimate of $1 million.
Gray made two of the screens but was unable to find buyers for either and so kept both in her Paris apartment.
The other is now in State ownership, having been acquired as part of a collection of Eileen Gray items by the National Museum of Ireland for what Dr Wallace said was a “a tenth of the price” a decade ago.
Eileen Gray was born in Enniscorthy in 1878. She spent her childhood between the family homes, Brownswood, Enniscorthy, and a house in London’s South Kensington. She became an architect and lived for most of her adult life in France where she was a leading figure in the Art Deco design movement.
She died, aged 98, in Paris in 1976.
A collection of items by Eileen Gray is on permanent display at Collins Barracks in Dublin – the decorative arts branch of the National Museum. Her work is also featured in a temporary exhibition, “The Moderns” at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham until February 13th.
