Mackintosh footstool sells at auction for ten times the estimate

A wooden footstool designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh has sold at auction for £81,450 – more than ten times the original estimate.

The stained oak stool, standing 38.5cm high and 44.5cm wide, attracted international interest at Lyon & Turnbull’s Design Since 1860 sale in Edinburgh on Thursday.

The footstool was part of a group of furniture Mackintosh designed for the Billiards and Smoking Rooms of Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms in Glasgow.

This section occupied the building’s top two floors above the tea and luncheon rooms.

John Mackie, director of decorative arts & design with Lyon & Turnbull, said: “The work at Argyle Street followed on from his previous work at Miss Cranston’s new Buchanan Street Tea Rooms, which had been conceived two years earlier in 1896.

“In this commission, Mackintosh was in charge of furnishings and his designs for these new rooms exhibited a new, more robust evolution of his repertoire and established a style for much of his work up to 1900.

“The bold and simple aesthetic of the designs marked him out from his contemporaries.

“It’s indicative of the interest in the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh that we received bids from across the world for this footstool.”