An unassuming dining table is the most expensive piece of Nordic design to be sold at auction, at more than £600,000 ($1.3 million).

The 63-year-old table is a one-off by Denmark’s late Peder Moos, sold at London auction house Phillips’ October design auctions.

It achieved more than four times its pre-sale estimate, reaching £602,500 to surpass the world record for Nordic designs.



Images: Dezeen

Moos’ dining table was made in 1952 for the renowned Villa Aubertin in Nakskov, Denmark – the home of timber merchant M. Aubertin and his wife – and was the only Moos piece in the house.

The table is slightly bowed in the middle from use, and features thin curved legs supported by wing-shaped braces.

Despite its price tag, it has quite standard dimensions; 98.6 centimetres high. 380 centimetres long and 72.7 centimetres wide.

The record for Nordic design pieces at auction was previously held by the architect of the Villa Aubertin, Finn Juhl for his 1949 Chieftain armchair, which sold for £422,500 in 2013.

Until now, the most expensive Moos piece was a 1956 cabinet, which sold for £106,297 in 2014.

Moos was trained as a cabinetmaker and later studied at Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and his work – which was predominantly made in wood – has been exhibited in Stockholm, the Hague and New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

The world’s most expensive design object is Australian designer Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge, which sold for $4.69 million earlier this year.

Time magazine reports that the most expensive piece of furniture sold at auction is the “Badminton Cabinet”, which went for $US36 million in 2004.