Bloemenwerf Chair by Henry van de Velde. It always amazes me how on the turn of the 19th to the 20ieth Century the Art Nouveau movement in which Belgium based Henry van de Velde was one of the famous architects, spread all over the world but also seemed to wrestle with stern design principles.
“Bloemenwerf†chair, ca. 1898
Elm, leather, brass tacks. 37 5/8 in. (95.5 cm.) high Manufactured by Société Van de Velde & Co., Belgium.
ESTIMATE $15,000-20,000
SOLD AT a whopping $33,750
PROVENANCE Private Collection, Antwerp, Belgium; Private Collection, Berlin, Germany
LITERATURE Klaus-Jürgen Sembach, Henry Van de Velde, New York, 1989, pp. 44–45 for the original model; Wendy Kaplan and Elizabeth Cumming, The Arts and Crafts Movement, London, 1991, p. 203, fig. 164 for the original model; Amy F. Ogata, Art Nouveau and the Social Vision of Modern Living: The Belgian Artists in a European Context, Cambridge, 2001, p. 97 for the original model.