Product Description
Tommi Parzinger / American Art Deco Coffee Table circa 1939
TOMMI PARZINGER (1903-1981) Germany/USA
PARZINGER, INC. New York
Coffee table c.1939
Carved and ceruse oak with an incised diamond pattern pewter top
Illustrated: Arts and Decoration, June 1940
***This table was originally priced at $80 during the period, as it appears in the Arts and Decoration vintage illustration from 1940.
For other examples of Parzinger’s work see: Town & Country, Vol. 54, “Counter Points”, December 1939, p. 31; Town & Country, Vol. 95, “Counter Points”, June 1940, p. 19; The Studio, 1938, “For the Table”, p.107-09; The Studio, 1942, “Tommi Parzinger, Designer of Modern Interiors and Silver”, p.37; Decorative Art, Studio Yearbook (London & New York: The Studio Publications, 1952-53), p. 98; Craft in the Machine Age, ed. Janet Kardon (New York: American Craft Museum, 1995) p.128, 134, 183, 241.
H: 12” x L: 42” x D: 14”
Price: $34,500
This is a wonderful and rare coffee table by Tommi Parzinger in beautifully detailed ceruse oak with a diamond pattern pewter inset top. This table was
completely handmade and dates from 1940, shortly after Parzinger opened his first eponymous gallery on East 57th Street. It is low and lean with exquisite Neoclassical Revival carved details and a silhouette that calls to mind an American take on Jean Michel Frank’s sober and refined elegance of the same time period. The cross-hatch carving with tassels on the two long sides and the related top corner details also have a charm reminiscent of Parzinger’s affable personality and effervescent design sensibility.
Tommi Parzinger / American Art Deco Coffee Table circa 1939
MÜNCHNER WERKSTÄTTEN Germany
Vase c. 1928
Blue and white modeled glazed earthenware with orange red outlines
Marks: “M” over “W” mark, Germany
Provenance: Mr. Ernest L. King (Watkins) “Rockledge” Commission, Winona, MN c.1930’s Phillip Brooks Maher (interior architect), descended in the King Family to Bud (E. L. King Jr.) and Betty King, Winona, MN, Hollander Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, Private Collection, New York, NY
H: 9 ¾” x W: 8 ¼” x D: 8 ¼”
Price: $5,450
ROCKLEDGE, the summer home of Ernest and Grace King (the Watkins Family Company fortune was made from door-to-door sales of health potions and hygiene related products) was built and designed in its entirety from the expansive main home building with all of the furnishings to the custom silver service all the way down to the hand woven carpets and lace curtain designs, is arguably the most famous American Arts and Crafts commissioned home in America and was built and meticulously designed by George Washington Maher. It was finished in 1912, and was used by the Kings for the month of August only for a couple of decades before the interior was completely redone in the fashionable Art Deco design of the 1930’s. George Washington Maher’s son Phillip Brooks Maher, was hired for the project and went shopping for the best of the design of the period in both New York and Paris. He assembled a legendary collection of Art Deco design that comprised many important examples of both American and European Art Deco including the famous Donald Deskey square form telescope table, a Gilbert Rohde “Z” clock, a pair of Mies van der Rohe red lacquer and wicker armchairs, DIM furniture and rugs from Paris and rare Paolo Venini floor lamps and sculptural glass pieces among many other major 20th Century design works. This rare vase was indicative of the avant-garde furnishings throughout the King Home as well as the exquisite quality and attention to the detail of every single object that the Kings surrounded themselves with and became accustomed to enjoying and living with whether they were at their Daytona Beach resort, their lakeside property at Lake Tahoe or their plantation in Hawaii!