Thursday 7 July 2016 – The sale of Brazilian Design that closed the summer season at PIASA featured over one hundred historical and contemporary items selected in conjunction with Bolsa de Arte. Tremendous interest among international collectors propelled the auction total to €1.3m.
Highest price was €198,300 for Joaquim Tenreiro’s chair Cadeira de Três Pés (lot 10), formerly owned by Carlos Correia Guedes Gondim – head of a construction firm which Tenreiro supplied with furniture for prestige apartments. The chair – produced in a strictly limited edition – remained in its owner’s penthouse by Ipanema Beach for many years. Its sensuous outlines are underlined by five alternating types of exotic wood whose nuanced shades, with their natural patina, lend the chair its elegance and finesse, and raise it to the status of artistic masterpiece (as reflected by its inclusion in the 1961 Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro). Provenance, history, sublime craftsmanship and a label signed with the artist’s name: the chair boasts all the criteria of excellence.
Also of note was the soaraway €74,230 paid for a magnificently sculptural 1970s table by Jose de Zanine Caldas, in solid wood with carved legs (lot 97): a contemporary ecological manifesto. Contemporary highlight was the Campana Brothers’ famous Cake Stool, made from cuddly toys, at €28,340 (lot 95).
