NEW YORK.- Christie’s held this week its Important 20th Century Decorative Arts sale, and auctioned a large double-pedestal lamp designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as one of a pair of free-standing lamps for the Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, IL.  The lamp sold for $1,989,500. There were five art collectors bidding by phone for this piece. The lamp sold in 40 seconds. The price for this lamp breaks the record for any design by Wright by more than twice.

 

One of the bidders wanted to put the lamp at the Dana-Thomas House, but he finally did not win the bid. Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the designs for the Susan Lawrence Dana House from 1902 to 1904, the year in which the house was built.  In 1902, the young Frank Lloyd Wright had just recently established himself as an independent architect and the commission he received from Susan Lawrence Dana was the largest and most important to date, providing him with the opportunity to explore innovative ideas and techniques.  The house Wright created – incorporating the Italianate family house of the Lawrence’s – was one of the most elaborate residences the architect would design in his seventy-year-long-career.  The house was bought in 1944 by Charles C. Thomas and became property of the state of Illinois in 1981.  It is the best- preserved and most complete of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style houses.      

 

Frank Lloyd Wright also designed the interior of the Susan Lawrence Dana House.  It included stained oak furniture, art glass windows and doors and light fixtures.  The lamp Christie’s is offering is one of a pair of double-pedestal lamps that were posed in the library of the House.  The design of the lamp hints at the design of the House, with its strong geometric lines.  The leaded glass, used in the shade of the lamp as well as in its base, reflects a delicate color pattern using iridized greens, yellows, whites and ambers.  Christie’s holds the world auction record for any work by Frank Lloyd Wright, which was established in New York in 1988 when the double pedestal lamp of the Robie House was auctioned for $704,000.