Large Art Deco desk
A high quality 1930s French double-sided desk.
Original key and lockable four drawers. 170 x 75 x 75cm high.
Price: 3.500 euro
Tag: home-decor
Wim den Boon (Nl. 1912-68)
A small wall mounted oregon pine desk (ladies desk) with accompanying drawer unit.
128 x 39.5 x 72cm high
Designed and made to commission for a private residence in Laren, NL in the 1960s (Like much of den Boon’s work this item documented at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam). It was initially designed to work as a vanity unit, although nowadays can be used as a neat little desk.
Purchased from its initial owner who commissioned it amongst other furniture specifically for their home.
Between the 1950s & 60s, Dutch designer and architect Wim den Boon was at the height of his powers. His success alongside other designers as ‘Group &’ (including Hein Stolle, etc.) and later with Goed Wonen lay in the fact that his purist design of the interiors and furniture fitted in seamlessly with the functionalist design of the late thirties. (Goed Wonen was a foundation and leading magazine formed after the war with the aim of “raising the standard of living in the Netherlands by improving home furnishings in the broadest sense of the word…”)
Den Boon wrote several articles for Goed Wonen – His articles are almost without exception educational, presenting readers sometimes quite forcibly with the liberating nature of the new design. His polemical character, stubbornness, and especially the strongly didactic tone of his articles was too much for many employees and readers of Goed Wonen and in 1950 the editors forced him to resign. It was also around 1950 that he broke his relationship with ‘Groep &’ and established himself as an independent interior designer in The Hague. From then on, his interior designs are increasingly characterised by a very careful treatment of the space that can be very strict, deliberate, and sober but also highly refined. Throughout this golden period of the 50s-60s, an extensive oeuvre was created, varying from small renovations and furniture designs to complete new construction projects for private individuals such as those who commissioned this piece.
This is a unique piece of Dutch mid-century modern design history (please note that we are also selling other items that came out of the same house)
Minor superficial wear and tear. A scratch to the top of the drawer unit and some minor discolouring.
Price: 1.500 euro
Venesta plywood table/stool for Isokon. 1930s
Plywood No.1 table/stool with its accompanying circular tray. Manufactured by Luterma. Both stool and tray are stamped/labelled Venesta.
The British furniture entrepreneur Jack Pritchard managed Venesta the import company for Luterma in England who later formed the Isokon furniture company which most notably employed Marcel Breuer. These tables/stools were distributed in England post 1933 until 1939 exclusively by Isokon alongside designs by Marcel Breuer and Egon Riss.
Although the designer of the stool remains anonymous, in 2004 the art historian Alastair Grieve described a modification of the original Luterma stool (of which this stool is one) when he wrote that the original design was subsequently re-designed by the architect and founder of the Bauhaus Walter Gropius (hired as a consultant to Isokon). The very slight alterations Gropius made was to include sharper curves to the cut-out squares of the stool. Gropius’s drawings for the redesign can reportedly be found in the collection of the V&A Museum, London.
The separate tray placed on top of the stool is unusual and rare in that it is much thinner than all other trays we have seen. This has led to some minor warping over time (which may have been why it was produced later with a thicker rim?) The thinner rimmed tray may suggest that this was an early production or at the least a more limited production?
h.46.5cm x w.44cm x d.44cm
Literature:-
- Kermik, Juri (2004) The Luther factory: Plywood and furniture 1877-1940
- Daybelge & Englund, (2019); Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain
- Pritchard, Jack (1984); View from a Long Chair: The Memoirs of Jack Pritchard
Price: 3.650 euro
[merzbau] 