Ross Morrison signed 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.
“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 New Zealand pottery bowl and that is it, nothing else and it’s all gone.”
Mr Morrison became a specialist of mid century interior design after accumulating furniture on 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 any more 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.”
