Fill your Folk Art home with sustainable décor
13 June 2023 Folk Art is a strong, distinctive look and offers the chance to be truly unique with your interior decorating since these pieces are almost always one-off handmade objects. As always buying pre-used and pre-loved is the sustainable choice.
This naïvely painted pine chest is decorated with tiger stripes and has a candle box to the interior. It is offered in Bishop & Miller’s Folk, Function and Frivolity sale on June 28 where it has an estimate of £40-60.
At auction, there are loads of Folk Art objects to be found. Although folk art items are often one of a kind, there is a certain look to these pieces: stylised animals, hand-painted furnishings, flowing organic forms and natural patterns. These items may be catalogued as ‘naïve’, ‘primitive’, or ‘provincial’, though the first two terms particularly are less popular these days in the world of Folk Art buyers and sellers.
Furniture bought at auction represents a significant saving on CO2 emissions when purchased from an auction rather than new from a shop – not to mention they can often be cheaper. According to a recent report commissioned by Auction Technology Group, a chest of drawers bought under the hammer represents a saving of 0.322 tonnes of CO2 emissions. This example is thought to be a 19th-century Swedish painted pine chest. It has an estimate of £100-200 at Duggleby Stephenson of York on June 23.
This 18th-century country-made oak and elm cricket table is offered at Mallams’ Oxford Library Sale of June 21-22 with an estimate of £80-120.
Armchairs represent a saving of 0.16 tonnes of CO2 when bought at auction according to the same study. Consider this oak or elm dug out chair from the 19th century which has an adzed back. Woolley & Wallis has it on offer for £2000-3000 at its Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks sale of July 5-6.
This unusual 19th century walnut photograph frame stand, possibly from the US, is flanked by two female nudes. Bishop & Miller offers it during its June 28 Folk Function and Frivolity auction, where it has an estimate of £800-1200.
Sofas also offer a CO2 benefit (again, according to the same study). Buying one at auction means a saving of 0.563 tonnes of CO2, and there’s still a saving when you take reupholstery into account. This example is not a true Folk Art sofa. It’s a 1960s teak sofa bed. However the Liberty pattern fabric gives it the right feel to fit right into a folk art home. Roseberys London has it on offer in its July 4 sale with an estimate of £400-600.
Discover the furniture you need at auction.
Want to learn more? Use our handy buying guides to get the inside track on what and how to buy at auction.
