Phillips breaks world record for most expensive Nordic design

A dining table by the late Danish designer Peder Moos broke the world auction record for a Nordic design piece, selling for over £ 600,000.

The unique table was sold as part of London-based auction house Phillips’ October design and Nordic design auctions, which resulted in a total of £ 5.2million in sales.

The Moos dining table was designed in 1952 for Villa Aubertin in Nakskov, Denmark, and features slender, curved legs supported by wing-shaped struts. It hit more than four times its presale estimate, hitting £ 602,500 to break the world record.

The record was previously held by the 1949 Chieftain armchair by Danish architect and designer Finn Juhl, which sold for £ 422,500 in 2013. Until now, the best-selling Moos piece has been a piece of furniture from 1956, sold in 2014 for £ 106,297.

Moos trained as a cabinetmaker and then studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Apart from a cart and a coffee table made by Fritz Hansen, he made all his furniture himself. Moos’ work – which was mostly done in wood – has been exhibited in Stockholm, The Hague, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

“In our Design and Nordic Design sales, we saw a demanding market led by great connoisseurs and collectors, choosing work from established mid-century designers,” said Alexander Payne, head of design at Phillips.

Earlier this year, the auction house broke another world record – Australian designer Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge retained its title as the world’s most expensive design item after selling for more than 2 million pounds sterling.

Phillips also held auctions for furniture designed by Ross Lovegrove and a paper tea room by architect Shigeru Ban.

Pieces by British ceramist Lucie Rie and artist Peter Collingwood broke individual records, with Rie’s free-standing bowl fetching £ 68,500 and Collingwood’s Macrogaze wall hanging for £ 22,500.

Other Nordic bestsellers include the 1940s Gyllenrutan by Barbro Nilsson, the blå rug, the 10-piece Cowhorn chair set and Dolphin folding chair by Hans J Wegner, and the spiral ceiling lamp by Pould Henningsen; all of which have fetched over £ 50,000 each.