Auction no. 272
on 1 June 2017, 11.00 a.m.
For five years now, the ORANGERIE at Grisebach has been creating a high-calibre crossover of works of art from world cultures with astonishing references.
Around the world: From the collection of the legendary Editha Leppich, who worked as an art dealer in Beijing as early as 1930, comes a bronze Buddha from the Wei dynasty dating from the 5th century - one of the earliest examples of Chinese Buddhist culture. The simplicity of the lines of a collection of 2,500-year-old jade pendants from Costa Rica is astonishing. In contrast, there are accessories and dresses by Christian Dior, who founded his fashion company 70 years ago to create the perfect line for women. For India's Hindu god Krishna, the ceremonial swing from Rajasthan was an exotic air conditioning system; Peter Behrens' extraordinarily large ventilator from 1908, which made industrial history, also created wind. The juxtaposition of Namban lacquer artworks from Japan with a cabinet by the Baroque lacquer artist Gérard Dagly reveals exciting references.
Design meets film: two desks from the ORANGERIE auction made design and film history. George Nelson's Action Office - incidentally the world's first office system in 1960 - featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick's film "Space Odyssey". The design classic by Danish designer (!) Bodil Kjær from the early 1960s, on the other hand, served as James Bond's desk in "From Russia with Love".
From Russia with Love: The works of art from the Russian imperial family in the ORANGERIE auction are outstanding. A 10kg silver tureen from the Permian service for Catherine the Great, which was part of the Russian state treasury in the Hermitage until 1930, stands out here. Grand Duchess Alexandra's gleaming golden champagne cooler was probably part of the most magnificent trousseau the world has ever seen. A curiosity is Tsar Peter the Great's lunch cannon, which once "shot the time" at the fortress in St Petersburg.
Sex Sells: The highlight of the auction is the sculpture of a model for the nude hall of the Vienna Academy by Franz Xaver Seeger, who was Messerschmidt's best friend and created a life-size prancing sculpture in 1783, which students could use to familiarise themselves with human anatomy and musculature. Opposite this is a bellows from West Africa, which looks like a hermaphrodite to our Western eyes.
Berlin, Berlin: The ORANGERIE also focuses on works that tell the cultural history of this city: These include the ravishing little girl's head by Christian Daniel Rauch, showing his beloved granddaughter, one of the rare river glass vases by Werner & Mieth. But there are also lamps from the music reading room of the GDR State Library from 1968.
The "ORANGERIE Selected Objects" auction showcases the best from all over the world - as is customary in an orangery. There are no limits to the epochs, genres and materials of art. The ORANGERIE thus encourages collectors to "cross over".