Two classic chairs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the art nouveau architect and designer, sold for a total of £241,000 sterling at Bonhams in London yesterday.
They were put up for auction by an Irish woman who wished to remain anonymous. She inherited the chairs from her mother who bought them at a sale in Clones, Co Monaghan, between 1953-55.
They were made originally for the Argyle Street Tea Rooms in Glasgow 1898/9, a celebrated commission in which Mackintosh used the high-backed chair style for the first time. It later became one of his design trademarks.
One of the pieces had three hairline cracks but it sold for £135,500 after being blown over in a gust of wind during a presale photo-shoot last week. The second example, which was perfect, made substantially less at £106,000.