Wright Auction

The present lot by Parisian interior designer Jean-Michel Frank arrives from the estate of Albert Lasker, an American businessman who was highly attuned to the potential of a variety of media forms and had a major impact on modern advertising. The head of Chicago ad agency Lord & Thomas, Lasker was a pioneer of commercial radio as well as the soap opera genre. The Lasker Estate in Lake Forest, Illinois, also known as the Old Mill Road Estate, was designed by architect David Adler and built between 1925 and 1928, with interior decoration by his sister, Frances Adler Elkins. Among other amenities, the Lasker Estate boasted a horse barn, an air-conditioned theater, and a "cocktail house." The present lot, created in the 1930s, is similar to lamps that Frank designed to illuminate the Vendôme boutique of French beauty house Guerlain.