FINDERS KEEPERS | MASTERS & MUSES | CABANA MAGAZINE
Antwerp-based antique dealer, Boris Vervoordt, first began collecting with his father, the legendary Belgian architect, Axel Vervoordt. Now, a preeminent collector and antiquarian himself, Boris shares with Camilla Frances the stories of two objects that have passed through his hands: his greatest find and the piece he’ll keep forever.
INTERVIEW BY CAMILLA FRANCES | MASTERS & MUSES | 25 OCTOBER 2024
1950s wooden box by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier @ Isabel Bronts
My Greatest Find: Wooden box by Le Corbusier
“Many years ago, I saw these small wooden boxes by the great architect, Le Corbusier. They came via a dealer who specialized in finding special lots. He’d bought them from a French housing project that Le Corbusier had worked on in the 1950s. He knew he’d made a special find and was asking quite a lot of money for the collection. I was amazed when I saw them, so I asked my father – then relatively new to the world of modernist furniture – to come and see this group of 40 dirty old boxes! “I told him I’d like to buy them and, actually, he liked them. He saw the quality and proportion straight away. When I told him the price, he recoiled, but I revealed they were Le Corbusier, and he was convinced.
"We bought all 40 and have since placed them in museums and important collections all over the world. But we kept one for ourselves, which I love. After we researched the boxes and made them well known through fairs and exhibitions, they became widely collected items of Corbusier furniture. It’s interesting to see how we have become part of this story; now when they come up for auction, they might say ‘Provenance: Axel Vervoordt’. Sometimes I am tempted to buy them back. As a finder, I think you keep a strong connection to an object you found and loved, it creates a sense of ownership, so you are always interested in it.”
The Piece I’ll Keep Forever: Sculpture by Peter Buggenhout
“The story started with a visit I made to the artist, Peter Buggenhout in Ghent. His studio is full of carefully catalogued found objects, which he uses to make his pieces, he throws nothing away. I went through this dark warehouse full of things and saw a small skylight. Under this, was my sculpture. I fell in love with it immediately, but it was a logistical nightmare getting it into our house in the historic center of Antwerp. It was carried over our neighbours’ houses, into our terrace, and then, when we moved to our new apartment, it had to come back out!
"We have an elevator here, so there was no way we could get it in. I was so disappointed. But Peter said, ‘No problem, I will re-make it, so it comes apart.’ He revised it and now it fits the elevator! It really can be a forever piece. “That’s the amazing thing about Peter, he is meticulous. Nothing looks deliberate, but there is so much order and precision. When we look at this sculpture, it looks chaotic, so our brain wants to memorize known forms to understand what we are seeing, but with this piece, you’ve never seen it all. Every time I look at it, I see something else.
"In our previous house, which was historic, it lived in a dramatic 16th-century room with a baroque fireplace, now it’s in a much more contemporary space. Wherever it is, it creates a sense of imbalance that makes rooms feel more balanced.”
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