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These men would do Roald Dahl's parson proud. Like the character in his short story Parson's Pleasure, who went scouring the English countryside persuading ignorant country folk to part for a pittance with furniture they thought was worthless, but was actually an exquisite Chippendale commode or pricelees Queen Anne chairs, a few French collectors have zeroed in on Le Corbusier's forgotten legacy in Chandigarh and made a killing out of it.via justin
Buying heavily at routine government auctions of "junk" furniture, stalking old employees of Corbusier and his cousin and collaborator on the Chandigarh project, Pierre Jeanneret, and acquiring neglected artefacts lying with them, these collectors have bought symbols of Corbusier's heritage—from manhole covers to wood-and-cane chairs—for as little as Rs 100, restored it to pristine perfection at a workshop in Delhi and shipped it to exhibitions and sales at Paris and New York galleries.
As recently as June 5, leading auction house, Christie's New York, auctioned off around 50 lots of furniture and other artefacts designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret at extraordinarily high prices . They all came from the collection of Eric Touchaleaume, a French dealer who has been on an active buying spree in Chandigarh for the last few years. At the Biennale des Antiquaires held at the Grand Palais in Paris in September last year, yet another Frenchman, Patrick Sequin, proudly displayed his 'collection' from Chandigarh.