Bacchus Antik: Part 5 - Lighting from Art Deco to Mid-Century Modern

Bacchus Antik – A Series of Themed Auctions
Bacchus Antik is the title for a series of ongoing themed auctions this autumn and spring, where large parts of Bacchus Antik’s rich and diverse inventory will go under the hammer. Owner Michael Strömquist has decided to scale back, and at Formstad Auktioner we are both proud and delighted to present these auctions in close collaboration with Bacchus Antik.
Bacchus Antik has long held a unique position among Stockholm’s antique dealers. The shop was established in Stockholm in 1994, after seven years in Kivik on Österlen, and has become a true meeting place for anyone interested in 20th-century design and decorative arts. It is the kind of place where one can step inside and immediately find oneself discussing anything from Danish lamps to Berndt Friberg’s exquisite ceramics. The shop has also served as a school of sorts for many aspiring collectors and dealers.
The atmosphere is refreshingly unpretentious. Exclusive design classics stand side by side with vinyl records in plastic crates. This coexistence between the everyday and the distinguished is rare in Stockholm, and part of what makes anyone who steps inside feel instantly at home. Perhaps this has to do with the owner himself always keeping his feet firmly on the ground. His father was an ICA grocer, as were his grandparents, who each ran their own store, one in Tommarp and the other in Gärsnäs. From that side of the family came the sense for buying and selling, while the love for objects themselves was shaped at home by his mother. When the choice was between a new teak table and an old farmhouse table, the latter always won – because that’s what she wanted.
Michael inherited the best of both worlds and became an antique dealer almost by destiny – one who acquired through his own passion, and who insists on “looking properly” at an object before letting it leave the shop. Some items, he admits, he still hasn’t finished looking at. “I was born a collector,” he says. “In a way, the shop is my collection. As a child I collected everything – film stars, matchboxes, spent rockets, movie tickets, coins, Merry bottle caps… I kept everything that was nice.”
Now, a significant part of all these “nice things” will be offered at auction, for you to bring home and look at yourself. It is a unique opportunity – one that will never come again.

At Bacchus Antik, the selection of design lighting is almost overwhelmingly rich — especially from the period known in art history as Mid-Century Modern, broadly spanning the 1940s to the 1970s. How did it all begin?
“When I started out in the 1980s, I was mostly interested in Art Nouveau lamps,” says Michael Strömquist. “But I had a dealer friend who often traveled to Denmark to buy Danish lamps for his shop — things like PH lamps and other fine pieces. Every now and then he needed quick cash, so I’d buy from him — and that’s how I got hooked on Danish lighting. Eventually, I became his best customer!”
Over the years, Michael has sold a great many fixtures, and he notes that people have not, contrary to what some claim, grown tired of the PH lamp. He has a theory why: “It glows like a piece of jewelry in the room. It’s timeless — it transcends trends.”
Among the auction highlights are Sabino’s beautiful ceiling fixture in dreamlike glass from the golden age of Art Deco, the floor lamp Napoleon by the Nile by Tore Ahlsén — perfect for the history enthusiast — and, of course, the iconic Artichoke lamp by Poul Henningsen, designed in 1958 for the Langelinie Pavilion in Copenhagen.
The auction offers lighting for every corner of the home — to brighten our lives during this dark time of year.