Heritage lamp to go under hammer in London

Ramkrishan Upadhyay  

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, October 20    

A standard floor lamp, designed by  Pierre Jeanneret 50 years ago, has been put up for auction. The reserve price for it has been kept at Rs 16  lakh. The floor lamp was  made  of steel and aluminum for the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the Legislative Assembly. 

It will be auctioned by Bonhams, an auction house in the UK. The height of the lamp is around 220 cm and the bidding for it will start on October 25.  The  lamp is the  second item after an armchair, which has been put up for auction  for  such a huge sum. The  same auction houses has  put up the chair for auction  for Rs 9,80,000. 

Bonhams was founded in London in 1793. It conducts more than 400 specialist sales a year in 60 different categories at their flagship salerooms in London, New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. 

Recently, Wright, an auction house in the US, had sold an armchair of the High Court for Rs 9 lakh. Ajay Jagga, an advocate  who has been raising the issue  for  a long time, has also written to  the CBI Director, demanding investigation into it. He said steps should be taken to investigate into the matter and stop such auctions through diplomatic channels.