Eckart Muthesius - Design New York Thursday, June 6, 2019 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore
    Private collection, acquired from the above, 1980s
    Thence by descent to the present owner

  • Literature

    "Indisches Märchenschloß 1933, Eine Berliner Architekt baut den Palast des Maharadschas von Indore," Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, November 1933, illustrated, n.p.
    Agnolodomenico Pica, "Eckart Muthesius in India, The avant-garde meets history," Domus, April 1979, illustrated pp. 6-7
    Patricia Bayer, Art Deco Interiors: Decoration and Design Classics of the 1920s and 1930s, London, 1990, illustrated pp. 138-39
    Reto Niggl, Eckart Muthesius 1930: The Maharaja's Palace in Indore, Architecture and Interior, Stuttgart, 1996, illustrated pp. 82-83
    Amin Jaffer, Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India, London, 2006, illustrated p. 267

  • Catalogue Essay

    Please note the present lot has been requested by the curators of the forthcoming exhibition "Le Maharaja d'Indore, l'Inde au défi de la modernité," scheduled to take place at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, from September 26, 2019 to January 12, 2020.


    In 1926 Yeshwant Rao Holkar II (1908-1961) assumed the position of Maharaja of Indore, following his father’s deposition and exile to France. He was only twenty-two years old when he returned to India and took on ruling responsibilities. Having completed his studies in England and traveled throughout Europe, he brought with him a modern perspective to his leadership as well as to the design and decoration of his palace, Manik Bagh, or “Garden of Precious Stones.”

    He had begun to develop a network of like-minded visionaries in the fields of art, architecture and fashion. Foremost among his European connections was the German architect Eckart Muthesius, whom he had befriended while studying at Oxford in the 1920s. The son of the renowned architect Hermann Muthesius (1861-1927), the younger Muthesius was enmeshed in the progressive architecture and design of his father’s generation and captivated by the budding International Style architecture of his own. The Maharajah and the architect shared a similar frame of reference and affinity for the European avante-garde.

    Yeshwant Rao thus hired his friend to design his new palace and the two worked closely together to build a ground-breaking homage to the Maharajah’s past, present and future legacy. Structured like a traditional Mughal palace around a central garden, Manik Bagh was otherwise modernist in every way, though the most functionalist aspect–the pitched roofs necessary to withstand monsoons– were so offensive to the Maharajah that the sketches used to publicize the project depicted it with flat roofs instead. Local brick and rare woods from the forests of Indore were employed to striking effect. The finishes and features were as modern and extravagant as technology and budget could bear, with air-conditioning (the first in India), metal-framed and tinted windows, hydraulic doors, machined marble and modern plumbing throughout the enormous structure. Most notably, the palace was filled with exceptional pieces of 1920s and 1930s modernist furniture by U.A.M. (Union des artistes modernes) members such as Le Corbusier and René Herbst, Bauhaus architects like Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Lilly Reich, as well as the Art Deco designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. A number of these works have gone on to become icons of twentieth-century design, setting record prices at auction, including Eileen Gray’s Transat chair from the Maharaja’s bedroom (sold at Phillips, New York, “The Collector: Icons of Design,” December 16, 2014, lot 15) and Ivan da Silva Bruhns’s enormous carpet in the palace’s red and black color scheme (sold at Phillips, London, “Modern Masters: Design Evening Sale,” April 27, 2016, lot 12).

    Photographs taken by Muthesius upon completion of the project show that the present lot was originally situated, along with another longer example, in the magnificent ground floor banquet hall. Imposing in its austerity, the room included an expansive dining table that stretched the length of the room and featured illuminated recesses for floral arrangements and tableware by Jean Puiforcat. The stained walnut veneers of both sideboards were inlaid with white metal marquetry in sun motifs, representing the Rajput ancestry that the Holkars of Indore claimed. The motif also appears within the monogram that Muthesius redesigned for Yeshwant Rao Holkar.

    In the 1970s the palace was rediscovered, shortly before the Maharajah’s privileges were revoked by the Indian government. Muthesius had long ago been forced to leave India during the Second World War, and the Maharajah had rarely occupied the palace in the intervening years. The palace went to the state, and in 1980 Sotheby’s Monaco famously sold a portion of its contents. The present cabinet, however, was not included in the Monaco auction and has remained in the same private collection since the 1980s.

Property from a Private Collection

125

Important sideboard, from the Maharaja of Indore's Banquet Hall, Manik Bagh Palace, Indore

circa 1931
Stained American walnut-veneered wood, stained American walnut, sycamore, nickel silver drawer handles, white metal inlays.
37 1/8 x 78 7/8 x 19 3/4 in. (94.4 x 200.2 x 50.3 cm)
Executed by Tischlerei Johann Eckel, Berlin-Lankwitz, Germany. Bow of key modeled with the Maharaja's monogram YH.

Estimate
$200,000 - 300,000 

Sold for $225,000

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New York Auction 6 June 2019