Rare Mackintosh dining chairs could fetch £30,000 in specialist online sale
RARE chairs made for a painter and decorator friend of Charles Rennie Mackintosh are to go under the hammer next week.
Two pairs of stained oak dining chairs, specially designed by Mackintosh for his friend William Douglas, are to be auctioned live online. The unique pieces of furniture will form part of Lyon & Turnbull’s specialist “Design Since 1860” sale on Thursday, April 22.
The two pairs of chairs, originally part of a set of six and upholstered in horsehair fabric, were created by Mackintosh in 1910 for William Douglas, house-painter and wallpaper hanger.
Mackintosh employed the decorator for various projects including
Hous’hill in Nitshill, home of Kate Cranston, for whose Tearooms in Glasgow the designer had created interiors.
Mr Douglas met Mackintosh in Glasgow after moving from Blairgowrie in Perthshire with his widowed mother. He built his business in the city, working from premises in West George Street.
By 1910 Mackintosh was in his last phase of creativity as an architect and designer in Glasgow. He completed the second phase of the Glasgow School of Art building, perhaps his greatest work, the year before.
John Mackie, a director at Lyon & Turnbull and a specialist in design from 1860-1945, said: “The sale represents a rare opportunity to purchase scarce original furniture designed by Charles Rennie
Mackintosh. Only six of these chairs were made and their design demonstrates Mackintosh’s skill in transforming traditional vernacular forms into something new.”
Bidding for the chairs will start at £15,000 for each pair.
Original pieces by the design icon are becoming increasingly rare. Just last October a bedside cabinet by
Only six of these chairs were made
Mackintosh was sold by Lyon & Turnbull for £250,000, well over the estimated sale price of £100,000 to £150,000.
The famous Scottish architect and designer designed the mahogany cabinet in 1916 for the only house he designed in England – 78 Derngate in Northampton, now a visitor attraction.
With its angular lines and minimal decoration, it marks a departure from the curved and stylised motifs that characterised much of his earlier work.
The Glasgow School of Art, which represents Mackintosh’s legacy, was recently ravaged twice by fire. It was completed in 1909 and is considered to be unique by architecture experts who point to the fact that for many years it was a working art school as well as a work of art itself.
However, in May 2014, the building was devastated by the first of the fires. The blaze, which destroyed about 10 per cent of the building, including the cherished Mackintosh library, broke out on Friday, May 23.
A second blaze broke out at the building in June 2018. Flames ripped through it after it caught fire on the night of Friday, June 15.
The blaze spread to nearby buildings, including the Campus nightclub and O2 ABC music venue, which suffered “extensive damage”.
Mackintosh’s first public commission – a building for the Glasgow Herald 1895 – is today home to The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Design and Architecture.
He designed the Scotland Street School in Tradeston, on the south side of the River Clyde, which later became a museum telling the story of 100 years of education, from the late 19th century to the late
20th century.
The striking Queen’s Cross Church in Garscube Road – the only church Mackintosh designed that was ever built – is home to the society dedicated to protecting and promoting his legacy.
Considered to be Scotland’s greatest designer, Mackintosh was born in Glasgow on June 7, 1868, and in 1883 he enrolled as a part-time student at Glasgow School of Art.
Such was his potential that in 1888 he joined the office of the noted Glasgow architect, John Honeyman. The firm later became known as Honeyman and Keppie, and by 1901 Mackintosh had risen to the position of partner.
In 1923, he and his wife Margaret Macdonald relocated to the south of France, where he turned his considerable talents to watercolour paintings.
He died in a London nursing-home on December 10, 1928, following a diagnosis of tongue cancer.