Iconic Super Chaise

We're Bond & Bowery, a website with the most diverse selection of antiques, design, and fine art in cyberspace. We highlight quality pieces without the clutter of competing ads and excessive editorial content. B & B understands the importance of a valuable acquisition and its contribution to home decoration.

Your B & B Host: I'm George Evans, and I've spent the last 20 years importing and exporting antiques and fine design pieces from Europe. I'm a New York City dealer and I have two showrooms in Lambertville, New Jersey.

This month we're highlighting a Mies van der Rohe MR Adjustable Chaise Lounge. Here's the big headline, folks: this chaise lounge is timeless furniture design. It was first designed in 1927, and this is a 1980s Knoll issue. The chaise will fit into any late 20th century interior. Even though it was created in the Art Deco period, the design is advanced well beyond the limits of the period. You are looking at styling genius at work here.

Why is this chaise collectible? This is a 1980s creation of a 1920s classic furniture design. It's a piece that is still made today at a much higher cost and with a longer wait time from the manufacturer. This is a signature piece any family would love to own for its design, its value, and its immediate availability.

The chaise comes from a Bond and Bowery dealer based in New York City, S. Julien, specialists in Art Deco and Mid-Century Modern items. The chaise lounge is made of tubular steel and leather, it's adjustable, and we know that this is one piece of the original 1927 MR line which included this adjustable chaise lounge, a side chair, an arm and armless lounge chair, and a non-adjustable chaise lounge. This piece was thought to be inspired by tubular iron rockers of the 19th century. Master designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe incorporated this “new” material and a new type of technology into furniture design, inspired by the cantilever principle.

The chaise lounge would be great in the living room or study, comfortable enough for reading or a taking a long nap. It’s another fine example of adding sculpture and function to any room.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was an architect and Bauhaus director, and one of the most recognized Modernist architects and furniture designers. His love of steel in furniture was something he brought into architecture, with steel frame buildings such as the Seagram building in New York being a prime example. Here's a tip: If you want to have a classic collectible in your home, one that is completely functional as well as artistic and sculptural -- providing a real exclamation point for any room -- then look no further than this chaise lounge.

Visit Bond & Bowery for the item detail page on this wonderful chaise.

And for a discussion about some other great pieces, please see my Fine Collectibles interview with Design2Share.

Tranquil Zenlike Table

We're Bond & Bowery, a website with the most diverse selection of antiques, design, and fine art in cyberspace. We highlight quality pieces without the clutter of competing ads and excessive editorial content. B & B understands the importance of a valuable acquisition and its contribution to home decoration.

Your B & B Host: I'm George Evans, and I've spent the last 20 years importing and exporting antiques and fine design pieces from Europe. I'm a New York City dealer and I have two showrooms in Lambertville, New Jersey.

This week we're featuring an exotic Antique Japanese Lotus Leaf Occasional Tray Table. 

This Japanese lotus leaf table shines with its carved burlwood. The execution is so natural and realistic that we would call it sculptural tromp-l'oeil. It's rare to find a combination of such fine wood quality and skilled carving technique coming together to produce such an exceptional end product.

This table has a unique blend desirable for collectors, merging both beautiful form and high function. As a collectible, we believe it would appeal to a lover of Japanese antiques and anyone who can just appreciate it for its uniqueness and multiple uses as a conventional table and as a piece of home sculpture.

This pieces comes to us from the Bond and Bowery antiques dealer Hudsons Estate Gallery, an appointment-only dealer in Oakland, California. We know that the tabletop is intricately handcarved from one solid piece of wood and then fixed onto a tripod base. A fine woodworker no doubt fashioned the top, showing off the exquisite curly grain of the lotus leaf.

The tray top is definitely of the Meiji period (1868-1912). The base was probably made later, but is of the same color and adds versatility to the tray's presentation.

This piece would be great anywhere in the home. There's the obvious, the living room or bedroom or using the table as a finishing touch in the home library, office, or den. Being 25” wide by 16” deep and 25” high, it could easily accommodate a small single lamp to add light to a room joined with a display of some small objets d’art. This is a piece that one would not want to hide, but make sure its shared with everyone! 

Visit Bond & Bowery for the item detail page on this wonderful table.

And for a discussion about some other great pieces, please see my By George! interview with Design2Share.