Bed designed for Monkton House in 1935 – estimate £20,000-40,000 at Roseberys.
Measuring 3ft 4in high x 5ft 3in wide x 10ft 8in long (1.01 x 1.6 x 3.26m), it was produced for the Map Room of Monkton House on the West Dean Estate, West Sussex, which James inherited along with a substantial family fortune in 1935.
Art collector and poet James (1907-84) collaborated with Salvador Dalí, architect Christopher Nicholson, his associate Hugh Casson and Wakefield to transform the Lutyens-designed Arts & Crafts hunting lodge dating from 1902 into a three-dimensional ideal of Surrealism during the 1930s.
Roseberys, the south London saleroom offering the bed with an estimate of £20,000-40,000 on September 14, says: “The project marked an exploration of realising Surrealism as a lived experience which pervaded everyday objects and spaces.
“It was this redesign of Monkton House that bore Surrealist masterpieces such as Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa and his famous Lobster Telephone.”
The bed, illustrated in Nicola Coleby’s A Surreal Life: Edward James 1907-1984, was bought by the present owner at Christie’s, London, as part of The Edward James Collection in June 1986.
