Marc Jacobs is Auctioning Off Items From His Home This Week

Living a life as creative and fabulous as that of Marc Jacobs, your home is likely to be full of beautiful things meant to inspire and delight. Sometimes, though, a fresh space requires a clean slate. The iconic designer and his husband, Char Defrancesco, purchased a place in Rye, New York earlier this year, and Jacobs decided it was time to let go of some of the treasures kept in their Manhattan townhouse; and go they will, in online and live Sotheby’s auctions being held this week.

“When you move into a Frank Lloyd Wright house, there isn’t a lot of wall space and you can’t hang a lot of paintings,” Jacobs explains in a catalogue for the covetable collection, when asked why he was putting his art, furniture, décor objects and jewellery up for bidding. “As much as I will have a difficult time parting with them, I just felt it’s time to give myself this window to start again.”

On the block at the Marc Jacobs: A Life of Design auction scheduled for December 12th are a gilt brass soap dish from the 1940s, a dreamy Jacques Quinet dining table and chairs, and a luxe Eugene Printz sideboard. A set of Francois-Xavier Lalanne’s frog-shaped chairs (with accompanying lily pad-shaped table) is one of the catalogue’s standout lots.

There’s an additional auction for another selection from Jacobs’ cache already online, which includes a vase by Memphis Group design pioneer Ettore Sottsass; prices in this grouping are decidedly more modest (with bids beginning at $50USD), meaning a piece of your favourite designer’s personal trove could actually be yours.

The Marc Jacobs: A life of Design collection is on view to the public, for free, until Wednesday, December 11th at the Sotheby’s New York location.