Ross Morrison is signing off as a collector and dealer after the two-day auction of 674 lots last weekend culminated in bidding reaching $13,500 for the teak armchairs by Danish designer Erik Kirkegaard.
By the final bid the overall total matched the $500,000 netted from a previous Auckland auction, once after-sales and a buyers’ premium of just over 17% were added up.
Among the highlights was another pair of Kirkegaard teak-framed armchairs selling for $7750 and a first-series black leather egg chair by Arne Jacobsen, imported into New Zealand in 1961, making $9000.
The collection was assembled by Mr Morrison over four decades of dealing and trading in decorative arts.
He has spent the past week overseeing deliveries and the picking up of Italian, United States and Scandinavian interior design from the 1950s to the 1970s alongside vintage, Georgian, William IV and earlier antiques.
Mr Morrison said he was both exhausted and elated after a better than expected result.
He was glad to see the collection go to new homes throughout the country and a few items heading to Australia with no regrets, he said.
‘‘There was fierce bidding for two pairs of Erik Kirkegaard chairs and that’s before the buyers’ premium of 17.25% as well so that is a world record. Nobody has paid that sort of money for those chairs. Then on the final day the Arne Jacobsen egg chair sold for $9000 plus buyers’ premium. I’ve had it for 15 years and always wanted that sort of money and finally it got there.’’
This followed the egg chair being passed in for $5000 at one of two Auckland auctions of items from his Mr Mod store in 2023.
He said it was difficult to explain how the chairs reached such a high price, but Erik Kirkegaard was a well known Danish designer from the 1950s and 1960s.
‘‘When you get two people who want something that was it. It was basically a fight between someone here on the floor and someone on the phone who won the auction for the first matching pair and then the second pair.’’
The chairs which he bought in Denmark will remain in Canterbury.
Many of the better items sold for double to treble his starting bids, he said.
A mahogany chest with carved, poly-chromed and gilded pair of dragons at the base and a marble top from Hollywood actor James Coburn’s house will be going to the North Island after a $2100 final bid.
He said some pieces sold well above expectations and other below, but it was time for him to let the collection go.
‘‘There were a couple of things I thought: what the heck? The sofas and display cases went pretty well, but I think people got a good buy with the Jens Quistgaard enamel pot and also some of the Eames stuff was low. I guess that’s a sign of the market for reproductions has caused that. … Overall, it was about the law of averages and the whole of the auction.’’
Only five items were eventually passed in after a virtually full clearance and after-sales of about 10 items.
‘‘All I’ve got left is an American iron chandelier, a folding screen from San Francisco, an antique photograph from Italy, a fish bait box I think from Tokelau, a pottery platter and a NZ pottery bowl and that is it, nothing else and it’s all gone. Over 99% sold when you work out there were 674 lots.’’
Mr Morrison became a specialist of mid century interior design after accumulating furniture on buying trips to the United States, France, Italy and Scandinavia before the movement caught on.
More than 300 people attended a mid-week preview night to view the lots and farewell him.
‘‘They were disappointed I wasn’t in business anymore because there was no one taking over that reign. With the international market being so high it’s very hard to repeat that. Nobody could put up a collection like this again because there was stuff from my teenage years that sold. … In the end you have to let it go and let other people have that enjoyment.’’
Unlike the two previous Auckland auctions, he managed this one at an Addington warehouse himself and credited his small team and auctioneer Ronnie Proctor for it going so well.
He plans to spend more time in his semi-retirement with sculpting and singing.
