Sitting Pretty--for a Price

As this century winds down, a flurry of recent high-profile sales provides a gauge for measuring interest in an icon of midcentury design: the Marshmallow sofa.

The Marshmallow was designed by Irving Harper of George Nelson Associates and introduced in 1956 by the Herman Miller Furniture Co. On Dec. 6, a 38-cushion model, a rainbow in Naugahyde and one of only two existing king-size models, sold for an unprecedented $66,000 (including a 10% buyer’s premium) at auction at the Treadway-Toomey Galleries in Oak Park, Ill.

The presale estimate was $25,000 to $35,000. Another record-setting sale at the same gallery last spring brought $44,000 for a standard 18-cushion Marshmallow in fuchsia Naugahyde, almost four times more than expected.

“Rarity, color and condition count,” says Richard Wright, director of the galleries’ midcentury modern department.

So apparently does upholstery. In November, at the venerable William Doyle Galleries in Manhattan, a standard version in orange wool was hammered down for a mere $16,100.

The Marshmallow, emblem of the atomic age, was always prized more as eye candy than comfortable seating. Herman Miller archives show only 186 were sold before production ceased in 1965.

In a 1990 interview, the company’s retired special-projects director, Joe Schwartz, acknowledged possible design flaws: People weren’t sure which marshmallow to sit on, he said. And if they chose one too close to the end, the whole sofa could flip over.