The prices commanded by authentic antiques are no joke, but would you pay a million dollars for a table full of asbestos?
Sotheby’s New York, in the last few months, has sold two Jean Prouve tables that are made from a material known as Granipoli concrete. The material is a mixture of cement and asbestos.
The first of the two tables sold for $988,000 in December last year, with the second selling for $1.6 million. The tables are part of a set of 30, created by Prouve in 1939 for a summer home in a southern French city.
Given the intended climate for the tables, they were protected from the salty air with galvanized steel legs, but at the time of production, the artist was unaware of the dangers of asbestos within the tables.
Asbestos has long been considered an excellent building material because it is strong, fire-resistant and acts as an electrical insulator. Unfortunately, as the material deteriorates with wear and tear, fibres are released, which can be deadly.
One art and antique dealer from New Jersey noticed that the material in the tables sold by Sotheby’s contained potentially hazardous materials. Jonathan O’Hea explained that the word “fibrated” in the listing alarmed him.
“It’s such a weird word. I had never heard of it but quickly deduced that it had to do with fibres being introduced to concrete,” O’Hea told Artnet News. “Seeing that the table dates to the 1930s, my immediate thought was, ‘That has to be an asbestos product.’ At the time, asbestos was seen as this miracle mineral, and [was considered] safe.”
The Sotheby’s listing did not give any indication that the buyer was buying an item potentially containing asbestos, which O’Hea says is “just wrong.” He believes that “there’s a moral obligation to notify the buyers, whether they care or not—asbestos is a known carcinogen.” He even went so far as to alert Sotheby’s to the presence of asbestos in the artefact but did not receive a response.
“Sotheby’s is currently working with its scientific research team to identify the material in question,” a representative for the auction house told Artnet News in an email. “The object remains in Sotheby’s possession and will be isolated pending the results of analyses.”