Knocking on Nakashima

At Design Art London, Sebastian + Barquet, a New York-based gallery with plans to expand to London, was showing one of George Nakashima's Mingurin tables made of buckeye burl and walnut, front and center, and touting it as a highlight of the booth in a statement titled "Is It Furniture or Art?". Last December, Nakashima's Arlyn Table, which is similar in style, sold for $822,400 at Sotheby's, trumping the designer's previous auction record by more than $600,000. Helene Murphy, who will be the director of the London gallery, wouldn't disclose the price on the Mingurin table, but said that the Nakashima pieces Sebastian + Barquet brought to the fair started at £20,000. There's no question that the Mingurin table is far more expensive than this, even if it is smaller than the Arlyn Table. Sebastian + Barquet is the gallery that took the prototype of Marc Newson's Lockheed Lounge to Design Miami six months after it sold at Sotheby's for $968,000 and slapped at $2.5 million price tag on it. It found a buyer. As of Sunday afternoon, there was "a lot of interest" in the Nakashima table, but no one had written the check.

George Nakashima, Walnut Coffee Table, Photo Credit: Sebastian + Barquet