Museum of Arts and Design’s Wharton Esherick cherrywood low table, 1960, sold yesterday for $24,000 (with buyer’s premium)
As we continue our cranky coverage of Deaccession December, let us not forget the disposals at Bonham’s by the newly relocated and reopened Museum of Arts and Design, New York. Although Bonham’s press release had announced that the sale was scheduled for Dec. 10, it actually took place yesterday, a week later. (Very tricky!)
Only 24 of the 44 MAD offerings found buyers, with a total hammer price of $54,325 against a $100,500-$147,600 presale estimate. The Wharton Esherick table above was MAD’s top lot, with a hammer price of $20,000 (presale estimate: $20,000-30,000). But the Wendall Castle plantain coffee table, 1984, estimated at $8,000-12,000 and pictured at the top of the above-linked press release, went unsold. MAD says that proceeds will go towards acquisitions.
All praise to Bonham’s for its online results list, which, with the click of a drop-down menu, allows you to see prices with or without buyer’s premium, allowing you easily to make apples-to-apples comparisons of hammer prices with the presale estimates of hammer prices.
If Bonham’s can do this on its low-tech website, surely Sotheby’s and Christie’s can too.