From Primitive Arts To Design

Collectors chose a fan from the Marquesas Islands and a bookcase by Charlotte Perriand.

This Tahi’i fan from the Marquesas Islands, featuring a bone handle carved with leaning tikis, was a highlight of Philippe Sohier’s primitive arts collection, and came in at just the right time for the season at €35 , 100. A prestigious ornament handed down within lineages, it was reserved for dignitaries – chiefs, priests or princesses – and was used as a badge of command and ceremonial object. This example is similar to the one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A Kanak ceremonial knife (l. 54.5 cm), with a rare carved face and two-tone patina, fetched €24 ,7000 . First seen in a collection before 1912, and among the earliest published examples, it probably comes from the Bourail region, in the center of Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. The modern section was marked by the €344 ,500 bid for a five-level bookcase (197 x 324 x 48 cm) by Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999), offered at around €100,000 , purchased from the Steph Simon gallery in the 1960s and kept in the same family. Combining oak and lacquered metal, it is composed of blocks separated by compartments with sliding doors.Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) obtained€14 ,300for his Femme assise, chemise relevée, dite “Bilitis ” (32 x 24 cm – See Gazette no. 20), a graphite and watercolor drawing executed on wove paper around 1900.