Best of Sale

Iron strong box treasure chest, nicely crafted case and mechanism.

Large Teak Jewelry Dowry Box with Brass, Late 19th Century, India. Indian Dowry Box in Lacquered Teak with Decorative Brass. This large Ethnic Indian ...

AN INDIAN ROSEWOOD AND EBONY BRASS MOUNTED BOX FOR THE ISLAMIC MARKET Malabar Coast, 18th century With a large drawer with several compartm...

Is a centerpiece, Is a fruit holder, Is a single piece of glass, cast, hand embroidered, It's an invention, it's a sculpture, takes the light and...

Is a centerpiece, is a fruit holder, Is a single piece of glass, cast, hand embroidered, It's an invention, it's a sculpture, takes the light and...

An antique Chinese wooden cash box from the early 20th century, with chain and partially removable top. Charming our eyes with its rustic presence and nicely weathered appearance, th...

A 19th century Mughal dowry chest with carved patterns from India. This chest wooden chest with a slanted top strengthened by metal hardware reinforcements. The front displays lightly carved geometrical friezes. A large carved geometrical medallion adorns the triangular lid. The chest rests on four conical legs. This chest opens thanks to an door on the centre of its top. This unusual item was used as a dowry chest in India. This 19th century, Indian Mughal wood dowry chest...

A Chinese vintage black lacquer lidded box from the mid 20th century, with hand-painted Chinoiserie décor. Created in China during the midcentury period, this black lacquer box showcases an oval lid adorned with a delicate Chinoiserie décor. Topped with a large handle, this black lacquer Chinoiserie box...

This striking sculpture represents a colorful TOTEM in white clay with each of its five elements featuring a different geometric shape and solid, vivid ...

An antique handmade Chinese money box with metal hardware from the 19th century. This rectangular box is made of two-tone wood. The front displays a ...

Karim Rashid for Leonardo Germany Limited Edition New Move Silver Glass Vase, ca 1999. Measures 8” high, base 3-1/2” wide, and mouth 2-1/4” wide. There is a small scratch of silver finish/coating on glass (we've posted an image of the interior and exterior at the area of the scratch). There is also a faint area of small blemishes at the base See images for more detail. If there’s one thing karim rashid hates, it’s trophies. The 40-year-old designer has more than 40 of them, from big international ones like the 1999 George Nelson Award (given for breakthrough furniture design), to quaint little Canadian ones like Designer of the Year 2001. “It came with a little pin,” says Rashid, “and a … a … very nice …” He tries to describe the shape of the award with his hands but gives up. “It’s time that whole trophy thing changes. It’s kitsch. They’re functionless things.” Rashid was asked to design one for the DaimlerChrysler Design Awards (he’s a past recipient). “I was going to make it electro-luminescent. When the lights go out, it has a sensor so it turns on,” he says. But the trophy-as-night-light, a reminder of one’s worth in the darkest hours, didn’t impress Chrysler’s people. He never heard back. They may well be gnawing their knuckles over that decision right now because Rashid’s conquest of the realm of product design is all but complete. A lush and suitably worshipful retrospective of his work, Karim Rashid: I Want to Change the World (Thames & Hudson; 249 pages), hits Australasian bookstores this month. There was a crowd around anything with his stamp on it-including stools, chess sets and storage units-at the recent International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City. More than 2 million North Americans are throwing their rubbish into a receptacle he designed, while 750,000 or so park their rears on one of his cheapo plastic chairs. It’s not just in North America. He has been dubbed Der Poet des Plastiks by a retailer in Germany and the prolifico progettista Americano by Interni magazine in Italy. Trophies he may despise, but accolades Rashid can handle. The problem with being the Most Famous Industrial Designer in All the Americas is that you’re still less famous than someone who got kicked off Survivor the first week. Most people cannot name the designer of one nonclothing item in their homes. Rashid, who was born in Egypt, raised in Canada and is living in New York City, is more than happy to bring an end to this anonymity. Not just because he wants to be famous, although there seems to be that, but because he believes design should be a bigger part of the social discourse. “I have been almost alone in this country, trying to make design become a public subject,” he says. His chief method of persuasion is to make the banal better so that people notice design more. He likes creating expensive furniture and perfume bottles just fine, but what really gets his juices going is the everyday: manhole covers, a cremation urn, disposable cigarette lighters, garbage bins, salt and pepper shakers, plastic pens. “I want American Standard to come to me to do the toilets for Home Depot,” he says. In many ways Rashid is more like an itinerant industrial evangelist than a designer. He traveled 200 days last year. He claims to have been to every major mall in America, where he signs his products in high-end design stores and trolls about observing humans interacting with the objects around them. He has taught at design schools for more than a decade, and his work has been in 11 art shows in the past eight months. But mostly he has proselytized the corporate barbarians. And like any good missionary, he has learned to speak the language of his converts. One of the first things he does when he gets new clients is tour their factories to understand their manufacturing capacity. He also visits the retail outlets to see how the product might be displayed. And he really knows how to sell, especially himself. “I work with a guy in L.A.,” says Rashid, declining to name him. “He made a lot of really bad furniture. His business was hand-to-mouth. I proposed seven or eight projects. The pieces I’ve done for him have already become iconic.” The subtitle of his monograph, I Want to Change the World, is not ironic, just characteristically immodest. “Most industrial-design studios try to interpret a client’s needs and come up with a style,” says Paul Rowan, co-founder of housewares manufacturer Umbra. “Karim has his own personal vision.” It helps that Rashid’s vision incorporates things that Rowan needs, like a design that will stack and ship easily and that creates little waste in the making. Rashid’s father was a set designer for Canadian TV who rearranged the family furniture every Sunday. So perhaps it was ordained that Karim would grow up to become one of the pioneers in non-cheesy plastic, making objects that have energy and personality but aren’t wacky. He, like many of his generation, has championed the could-only-be-designed-with-computers blob. But his is not just a blob for its own sake. His Oh Chair...

A vintage Chinese rattan hat box with weathered patina and oxidized accents. This vintage Chinese rattan hat box exudes a rustic charm with its ...