"It's not easy to sell off a nine-foot-tall, seven-foot-wide 18th-century Dutch cabinet to New Yorkers stingy about square footage, but the antiques dealer Jonathan Burden has a pitch. Weaving between $10,000 chairs, he says the piece comes apart into ten sections - easy for squeezing into an elevator. As for its size, "You've just got to have the nerve to do it." It's fairly convincing, especially when delivered in Burden's musical British accent."
"It's pushing the auction house into a new format: Instead of showing the pieces at Christie's headquarters at Rockefeller Plaza, the furniture will stay in situ in the warehouse, giving bidders two weeks to test the comfort of Chinese root chairs or stroll into the usually secret workroom where Burden restores pieces, whose walls display a lifetime collection of antique wood scraps and tools that resemble torture devices."
Jonathan Burden is moving oversized antiques from his Tribeca shop to a Long Island City warehouse and organizing a joint sale with Christie's. The sale will keep furniture in situ, allowing bidders two weeks to test pieces in the warehouse and to visit Burden's restoration workroom. One-third of the auction lots will have no reserve, enabling some items to start at very low bids. The sale includes large, unusual pieces such as a nine-foot Dutch cabinet and a variety of British daybeds, Scottish sideboards, and Chinese root chairs. Christie's emphasizes the warehouse's visual appeal and compares prices favorably to retail outlets.
Read at Curbed
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