Fancy pieces from Paris' Ritz Hotel to be auctioned
The legendary Ritz Hotel in Paris is auctioning off some of its iconic items.
According to Artcurial, the auction house in charge of the event, about 10,000 glitzy objects organized into 3,500 lots will be sold during an auction taking place from April 17-21. Every piece is stamped with the coveted "Ritz Paris" insignia.
The auction items range from decorative chairs, opulent tables, wooden dressers, fabric-draped beds, detailed curtains, highly revered paintings, and even a fancy dog bed.
A gold sofa featured in the salon named after the novelist Marcel Proust may fetch up to $1,800.
Before the auction begins, a staged exhibition will open which transforms the rooms of Artcurial's headquarters into Ritz Hotel rooms. That exhibit lasts through the auction.
The Ritz was founded in 1898 and reopened in June 2016 after a four-year-long renovation. The objects up for grabs will not gel with the new decor, the Ritz said.
“We, Artcurial, the company that organizes the auction, estimates the sale will fetch about $1.7 million," Stéphane Aubert, the Artcurial auctioneer in charge of the Ritz event, said.
After the auction was announced, Artcurial received interest from all over the world.
"The first call I received after I announced we [would] be auctioning some items from the Ritz Hotel was from an American from Texas," Aubert said. "He said he was very much looking forward to buy some items on sale."
The Ritz was the first hotel to install telephone lines in all their rooms as well as feature private bathrooms.
Many famous people have stayed at this hotel, including American writer Ernest Hemingway and fashion icon Coco Chanel. It was also the last place Princess Diana stayed in before she died in a car crash in 1997 while driving through a Paris tunnel.
