Press release -
Unique Furniture Pieces by Kaare Klint Set World Record at Bruun Rasmussen Auction
With a combined hammer price of USD 347,000 / EUR 313,000 (including buyer’s premium), an over 100-year-old group of furniture pieces by Kaare Klint set a world record at this year's final Live Auction for design in Copenhagen. Three beautiful chairs helped secure the record with a hammer price of USD 135,000 / EUR 122,000 (including buyer’s premium).
The furniture pieces, which consist of the three chairs, a sofa, a games table, two bookcases and a tray table, were designed by a very young Kaare Klint in 1916. It is a hitherto largely unknown group of furniture that dates back to Klint's earliest years as a furniture architect, and the pieces have never before been up for auction.
“The furniture was created during a period where Kaare Klint had not yet become a design icon for others to follow and was still developing his own style. These pieces are some of the furniture architect's very first designs put into real form, which is why the furniture was so sought after at this auction,” explains design specialist at Bruun Rasmussen Peter Kjelgaard. The group of furniture is considered to be among the most interesting early works of Kaare Klint.
Kaare Klint is internationally recognized as the most significant architect in Danish furniture history and has been given the title as "Father of Modern Danish Design”. As a furniture designer and professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he became crucial to Danish design and came to shape an entire generation of famous architects, who in the 1940s put Denmark on the world map with their furniture design.
At this year's final Live Auction with Danish design, there were several other exciting examples of Klint's work for sale. This included a rare mahogany grand piano made by Rud. Rasmussen and Hornung & Møller and the beautiful "Kuglesengen" (The Ball Bed), which is a true geometric study in circles and lines. The grand piano and bed achieved hammer prices of respectively USD 10,000 / EUR 9,000 and USD 15,500 / EUR 14,000 (including buyer’s premium).
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Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers is one of Scandinavia’s leading international auction houses, and one of Denmark’s oldest. It all started on 6 October 1948, when Arne Bruun Rasmussen conducted the first traditional auction in the saleroom at Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen. Today, Jesper Bruun Rasmussen stands at the helm of the family-run business together with the third generation of the family, his son Frederik and daughter Alexa, and the company’s CEO Jakob Dupont.
In 2004, the first online auction was launched, and today the auction house has expanded to include departments in Copenhagen and Aarhus and representations in Sweden, Germany, England, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, Italy, Thailand and the US. About 100,000 lots are put up for auction each year at the traditional auctions, the daily online auctions and - the latest edition - direct auctions. Here you can bid on everything from art, antiques, modern design and jewellery to books, coins, stamps, wine and weaponry.
