In just six months we will speak of 20th-century furniture and furnishings as from the last century, and it appears that collectors and dealers are already sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Good design is timeless.
My first twentieth-century sale a year ago brought roughly four hundred thousand dollars. Reportedly, they are part of a set of six made for Happy Rockefeller, who has the other four but never picked up the last two. These pieces were among the furnishings bought in the 1970's by Victoria Fiore, a former opera singer, and her husband, Roland, a conductor. Mrs. Fiore was so captivated with George Nakashima's mastery with wood, especially his use of burls and knots, free-form edges, and the occasional use of exotic woods, she worked as a receptionist at his studio every Saturday when it was open to the public and spent all of her earnings, and then some, on very special pieces. Nakashima furniture from other consignors sold well too.