Auctions and their history

From art nouveau to modern design

Most of the sales offer a wide variety of antiquarian objects. Auction house Quittenbaum in Munich became famous due to its narrow specialization. His specificity is Art Nouveau style, Art Deco and modern design. The head of the house Askan Quittenbaum told us about the history and principles of work of the company.

≈ Mister Quittenbaum, could you tell us when the auction house Quittenbaum was founded. How did everything begin?

≈ In the 1970s my mother Ellen Quittenbaum started the trade of art works at first in Dusseldorf, then in Hamburg. In 1998 she found an auction house in Munich and from the very beginning it was situated in this building. Thus it was as large as today, but we have more staff members now.

From the very beginning we specialized on Art Nouveau style and Art Deco. But the situation changed, and now about 40% of the income is brought by modern design. At first the income of the objects of the beginning of the XX century made 90√98%.

≈ What traditions of Ellen Quittenbaum do you continue in the auction house and what innovations have you introduced?

≈ One of the traditions that I develop is collecting and selling African art that fascinated my mother to a great deal. And, of course, the Art Nouveau and Art Deco. I, for instance, started to sell the objects of modern design.

This is the field in art that causes personal interest in me. Of course, our collaborator Arthur Floss who directs this department in the House Quittenbaum from 2001 helped us a lot. The works of modern design were greatly demanded from the very beginning both in Munich and abroad. During the two last years the interest toward them in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is especially high.

And Muran glass is my personal passion from the very beginning, from the very moment that I discovered this ancient art. I even started to collect it.

≈ And who are your main clients?

≈ One group is the art work dealers, many of whom take their own niche on the international market. The antiquarian market has its specificity depending on the country. In some countries, for instance, Japan and the USA some objects are sold much more expensively than in Europe, other much cheaper. The second part is the group of collectors. The Art Nouveau style is basically collected by people older than 50 years. The other group of the buyers who are interested in modern design are not collectors who want to enlarge their collections but young people gathering interior objects for their houses or apartments.

They not only buy the standard furniture in the shop, they want to purchase designer▓s object with its own history. And if possible originals, not the copies.

≈ Your site offers information in several languages? As to German and English ≈ it is quite understandable. But why Japanese? What bonds you with this country?

≈ There are a lot of people who like Art Nouveau style in Japan. It is Japanese art that influenced it a lot. And we also think of making a Russian version of the site, but we don▓t have many Russian clients. I▓ve heard that modern design is very popular in Russia nowadays.

We have many clients from France, England, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. Much fewer clients from Nordic countries. Hungarian collectors patriotically buy Hungarian porcelain and ceramics. There are some Rumanian clients; some Polish, Byelorussian and we had one client from Latvia. We are very attentive in respect international contacts. Of course, it would have been ideal if we got more money at the auctions in Munich, then we wouldn▓t have had juridical and organizational problems related to payments and shipping. But this is a utopia. The market changes constantly, the fashion develops in a different way in different countries. A great quantity of international contacts helps to attract more and more participants to the auction.

The works for auction collections come not only from Germany, but also from foreign citizens. For instance, we get interesting Muran glass objects from the USA, as there are much less auctions that deal with this direction there.

≈ What are the criteria for selection of the objects for sales?

≈ The value of the object is the main demand. We, like most of the other auction houses, try to decrease or keep the same the quantity of the objects raising the quality. It takes much time to prepare the objects for sale, an object that costs 50 or 100 euros demands the same effort as the object that costs 10,000 euros.

The condition of the object plays a very important role. Surely, if the object is very rare, we admit the objects in worse condition.

≈ What is the average quantity of the objects featured for sales?

≈ About 700. In the field of modern design our auction house is the leading in Germany. We hold two big auctions a year and more often specialized auctions devoted to particular objects. In February, for instance, we held the sales ⌠Modern glass ≈ modern design■.

≈ And what is sold at the sales especially successfully?

≈ We successfully sell the objects of our special directions ≈ Art Nouveau style, design and African art. But generally this sphere is subject to all the changes on of the market, to international fashion. Now, for instance, there is a great demand for French ceramics.

≈ What made you to enter the German union (BDK) of the auctioneers a year ago?

≈ This organization gives information concerning the changes in auction law. We are to be informed of all the changes. BDK carries out many useful activities in the field of politics of the auction house.

≈ What sales were the most successful ones recently?

≈ We had two remarkable auctions. The first sales of the Muran glass objects held in 2002. The other interesting auction devoted to the history of design was held in autumn. These were highly dynamic auctions with high rates of sales ≈ more than 70%. We featured two big private collections for February sales that were almost totally sold out. Due to the program Live auctions worked out by the internet-auction eBay with which we collaborate, the sales were very dynamic. Both the projects attracted numerous clients. There were some other auctions where we sold out more than 80% though the collections didn▓t possess a selection of quite outstanding works.

≈ Tell us, please, about the most surprising lot that went through your hands.

≈ This is a magnificent Emil Galle called by him ⌠Rose de France■ created in 1902. We featured it for the auction on November, 28 of the last year and reached the record price of 65,000 euros. Such an ornamentation decorated not more than ten objects. The vase that was sold in November, was stores in the private collection for half a century. Now I consider that we gave it a low estimate ≈ 30,000 euros only. The estimate of 60,000√80,000 euros would have been more adequate. Such objects impress those who understand in the technique of production of glass objects not speaking of common onlookers. We had other remarkable works, but Emil Galle▓s vase outshined all of them.

≈ Can Russian art and antiquarian objects be often come across among your objects?

≈ There are not many lots of the kind. I remember that on the auction of February, 6 we sold the women▓s act written by Alexandre Arkhipenko, the artist of Ukrainian origin. In October we had a drawing of one Russian artist that was estimated 100 euros and sold it for 3,000 euros to one client from Russia.

≈ What can be of interest for potential buyer at the auction of May, 29?

≈ This is the auction of modern design and African art. We will feature about 500 objects for the auction of 1920√1990s with the estimates from 300 to 80,000 euros. A section of Italian objects is of a particular interest, Italian design is greatly demanded throughout the world. I can give two armchairs by Gio Ponti as an example. They were designed in 1964 for the hotel Parco del Principe in Rome (estimate 80,000 euros). A very attractive object is a set ⌠Djinn■ created in 1965 by Olivier Morgue (estimate 5,000 euros). It consists of a two-seat sofa, two armchairs and a bench. This design became famous after Stanley Kubrick▓s ⌠Space Odyssey■.

Among the Russian lots we had a decorative plate with a signature of El Lisitsky.