Wooden chair bought for just Rs 500 from junk shop sells for Rs 16 lakh

A woman acquired a wooden chair from a junk shop for £5 (RS 500) and sold it for £16,250 at an auction (Rs 16.4 lakh).

The woman purchased the chair in a shop in Brighton, East Sussex, UK, unaware that it was a rare design. When she contacted a valuer, she discovered that the chair was from a Vienna avant-garde art school in the early twentieth century.

Koloman Moser, a well-known Austrian painter, developed the chair in 1902. Moser was a member of the Vienna Secession, a group of artists who opposed traditional artistic styles.

The chair is a modern take on a conventional ladder-back chair from the 18th century. The webbing on the seat and back of the chair has a checkerboard-like grid that serves as a decorative element.

Sworders Auctioneers in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, recently held an auction to sell the chair.

The chair was purchased over the phone for £16,250 (Rs 16.4 lakh) by an Austrian merchant.

John Black, a specialist at Sworders who first valued the piece, was quoted as saying by Mirror, “We are delighted with the sale price and are particularly pleased to know it will be going back to Austria. The seller was also thrilled and I think they needed to sit down upon being told how much it sold for.”

He added,  “The vendor had done some research but was unsure if the attribution was correct, so I decided the best course of action would be to speak to Dr Christian Witt-Dorring, a specialist on the Vienna Secession movement. He confirmed the attribution and praised this example for the dignity of its original condition.”