Coco Chanel's Desk Sold For A Staggering Amount
This month's auction of 10,000 pieces of antique furniture from the storied Ritz-Paris hotel earned $8,952,337, setting a world record that's almost nine times the estimated total of about $1 million.
At the top of that cash pile was a Louis XV–style chair and desk set from the Coco Chanel Suite, which sold for $223,860-300 times its estimate, according to Architectural Digest. Other big earners included furniture from the hotel's famed Bar Hemingway, such as bar stools from its namesake Earnest Hemingway's reign over the watering hole.
The famed hotel had enlisted auction house Artcurial to sell 10,000 pieces of furniture and "objets d'art" that no longer suited its decor after its recent $400 million renovation, which was overseen by interior designer Thierry Despont.
The pieces went on exhibition from April 12 to 16 in Paris before the sale from April 17 to 21.
Highlights from the auction also included a gilded bed on which Audrey Hepburn lounged in Love in the Afternoon and salon sofas from French writer Marcel Proust’s retreats at the hotel.
Countless stars, royals, and brilliant minds have called the The Ritz Paris home, and while most of us can’t afford to live in such posh digs, you can soon purchase part of the iconic hotel’s decor.
According to Hotels of the Stars, Hemingway took credit for “liberating” the bar and the aforementioned stools from the Nazis during WWII, and then (perhaps more believably) ran up a tab of 51 martinis with his crew of Resistance fighters. Hemingway spent many other nights in that bar perched with his pals, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
Other famous guests include Coco Chanel, who lived in a second-floor suite from 1937 until her death in 1971, and Diana, Princess of Wales, who spent her last living hours at the hotel before her tragic death in 1997.
The auction also included chandeliers, vintage bed linens, bathrobes, rugs, statues, art, and many other icons of French luxury and antiquity from the Ritz.
Don’t worry about the hotel losing its historic charm with the sale of these antiques. About 80 percent of the previous classical furniture and period paintings were kept and restored, according to a press release from the auction house.
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