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  Sori Yanagi / Tendo Co. Ltd. / Japanese Crafts “Butterfly” Stool c.1956

  Sori Yanagi (1915-2012), Japan
  Tendo Co. Ltd., Japan

  Butterfly stool, 1956.

  Bleached rosewood veneer on plywood with brass.

  H: 15” x W: 16 ½” x D: 12”

  Price: $4,900

  This model can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

  The Japanese designer Sori Yanagi is best known for his 1956 Butterfly Stool. It is both elegant and utterly simple: two curved pieces of molded plywood are held together through compression and tension by a single brass rod. The stool’s graceful shape recalls a butterfly’s wings, and has also been compared to the form of torii, the traditional Shinto shrine gates. He loved traditional Japanese crafts and was dedicated to the modernist principles of simplicity, practicality and tactility that are associated with Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, and Le Corbusier.”

  Yanagi, who studied architecture and art at Tokyo’s Academy of Fine Art, was inspired by the work of Le Corbusier and by the designer Charlotte Perriand, with whom he worked in the early 1940s, while she was in Tokyo as the arts and crafts adviser to the Japanese Board of Trade. But perhaps the most indelible influence on Yanagi was that of his father, Soetsu Yanagi, who led the “mingei” movement, which celebrated Japanese folk craft and the beauty of everyday objects, and who founded the Nihon Mingeikan (or Japanese Folk Crafts Museum) in Tokyo. Yanagi fils, who was named director of the museum in 1977, succinctly described his design aesthetic in a 2002 interview in The Japan Times: “I try to create things that we human beings feel are useful in our daily lives. During the process, beauty is born naturally.” Throughout his life, Sori Yanagi was inspired by what he called “anonymous design” — he cited the Jeep and a baseball glove as two examples — and he in turn inspired younger designers, like Naoto Fukasawa, Tom Dixon and Jasper Morrison.

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  Josef Hoffmann / J. & J. Kohn Vienna Secession Stool c.1907

  JOSEF HOFFMANN  (1870-1956)  Austria
  JACOB & JOSEF KOHN  Vienna

  Stool  c. 1907

  Mahogany-stained beech with upholstery fabric (new) designed by Josef Hoffmann by Backhausen, Vienna

  Illustrated: Jacob & Josef Kohn 1916 catalogue (reprint), p. 37, Model no. 728/s; Klassiker des Modernen Möbeldesign, Dorothee Müller (Munich: Keysersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1980) illus. 85, p. 110: Jacob & Josef Kohn catalogue (reprint in Moderne Vergangenheit Wien 1800-1900 (Vienna: Künstlerhaus, 1981) p. 63; 1909  Jacob & Josef Kohn catalogue (reprint) in Bent Wood and Metal Furniture: 1850- 1946,  Derek E. Ostergard, ed. (New York: The American Ferderation of Arts, 1987) p. 107.

  H: 18″ x Dia: 14″

  Price: $4,250

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  Archibald Knox / Liberty & Co. Crumb tray c. 1902-05

  ARCHIBALD KNOX (1864-1933) UK
  LIBERTY & CO. London

  Crumb tray c. 1902-05

  Pewter with abstract Celtic design in bas-relief

  Marks: 3, ENGLISH PEWTER 0532

  Illustrated: Archibald Knox, ed. by Stephen A. Martin (London: Academy Editions, 1995) ; Liberty Design 1874-1914, Barbara Morris (London: Pyramid Books, 1989) p. ; The Designs of Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co., A.J. Tilbrook (London: Ornament Press Ltd., 1976)

  L: 9 1/2 “ x 4 1/2″

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  Archibald Knox / Liberty & Co. / James Powell & Sons Serving dish c.1902-1905

  ARCHIBALD KNOX (1864-1933) UK
  LIBERTY & CO. London
  JAMES POWELL & SONS . WHITEFRIARS, UK

  Serving dish c. 1902-1905

  Pewter with floral entrelac in bas-relief and Powell green glass insert

  Marks: 0163 (Tudric number), English Pewter, CONNELL 83 Cheapside London (retailer)

  Illustrated: Archibald Knox, ed. by Stephen A. Martin (London: Academy Editions, 1995) p 97.

  Related models illustrated: Archibald Knox, ed. Stephen A. Martin (London: Artmedia Press, 2001) p 208.

  H: 2” x Handle to handle W: 7 ¼”
  Spoon length: 6 3/8”