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Article: BADMINTON CABINET SETS AUCTION RECORD.(At Home)
- Article from:
- The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, OH)
- Article date:
- December 18, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Cincinnati Post. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Dialog LLC by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Linda Hales Washington Post
The famous Badminton Cabinet -- auctioned in London on Dec. 9 for $36.7 million -- is the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold. The massive Italian piece, which dates from 1726, is lavishly inlaid with semiprecious hard stones. It established an unbroken record price for a piece of furniture when it was sold for $15.2 million in 1990. Christie's had hoped to make a little more this time, and so Christie's did, more than doubling the 1990 selling price.
The 18th-century Florentine ebony chest was never about function. The piece was commissioned in an era when exquisite decorative objects signified wealth and ...