The Price of a Recliner You Don't Sit On

When Chelsea gallery Sebastian + Barquet slapped a $2.5 million price tag on the prototype for Marc Newson's Lockheed Lounge at Design Miami last year, it seemed like they might have jumped off the deep end of the art market into the dangerous waters of pure speculation. That figure was almost triple what the same piece brought at Sotheby's six months earlier, when it became a record for a living designer at auction, and almost 24 times what another of the lounges fetched six years earlier. What made the move even nuttier was that just following the lounge's sojourn to the most hedonistic of art world gatherings (Design Miami coincides with Art Basel Miami Beach), the gallery told me that it was for show, not for sale. No word yet on whether or not that's still the case.

But now we'll get to publicly test whether or not Newson's sleek interpretation of the French classic can break a million (or more).

Christie's is selling one of the lounges in London during Frieze week, and it's put a high estimate on the piece that falls just shy of the $2.5 million Sebastian + Barquet was quoting.

The work in Newson's first show at Gagosian Gallery earlier this year ranged from $70,000 for a colorful lamp to $450,000 for a marble shelf that looks like a slab of honeycomb. No doubt Newson's star has risen further following Larry Gagosian's endorsement of the designer. The question is how high?