Coming up in our auction of Design in January 2022, we have a collection of Eames designs that were once owned by the architect John ‘Jack’ Bonnington and used at his offices in Tyttenhanger House near St Albans.
29 December 2021
Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, are considered the most important American designers of the 20th century. Influenced by new materials in the 1940s, such as moulded plywood, their work was innovative and cutting-edge. Even today, designs look elegant, refined and practical, and are still highly sought after throughout the world.
In the early 1950s, Eero Saarinen and Alex Girard were asked to design a house for the industrialist Irwin Miller, in Columbus, Indiana. They approached Charles Eames to design ‘high quality outdoor seating’ - the three were all known to each other, as Saarinen had studied with Eames, and Girard was a member of the team at Herman Miller who made many of Charles Eames’ designs.
It was this commission that led to Eames designing the ‘Aluminium Group’ chairs that were, in part, designed for the outdoor, but quickly became synonymous with the interior look of the late 1950s and 60s.
The designs in our forthcoming auction in the New Year include examples of the ‘EA116’ lobby chairs (lots 487 and 488), and the ‘EA105’ office chairs (lots 573 and 603). These were all once owned by the architect John ‘Jack’ Bonnington and used at his offices in Tyttenhanger House near St Albans. The modernist home that Bonnington built for himself, Ferrum House is now for sale with The Modern House.
A major highlight of our forthcoming Dreams – A Unique Private Collection sale on 9 July is a remarkable archive of letters and manuscripts by John Ruskin (1819–1900), the celebrated Victorian polymath. This unparalleled group – numbering in the hundreds – is believed to be the largest collection of Ruskin correspondence in private hands and spans a vast range of topics from art and architecture to politics, religion, and personal reflection.
2 July 2025
'The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz' - also known as 'The Bagh-i-Muattar' - quickly caught the attention of our book specialists, when a copy bound in full vellum was brought in by a local client to our weekly valuation day.
2 July 2025
We are thrilled to launch The Glass Sale - a brand-new addition to our auction calendar! The inaugural sale will take place on Tuesday 28 October and will become a biannual fixture in our calendar going forward.
20 June 2025