In a 2011 Phillips auction a table from the library of the Punjab University was sold as the work of French-Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret for over $300,000 USD. This auction was an almost unconceivable event – a piece of utilitarian municipal furniture, used by generations of university students, selling at an international auction for more than the price of a house in the city of its origin.

Employing the case study of modernist furniture from the Northern Indian city of Chandigarh, this paper outlines the systemic culture and environment of the trade in high-end objects of design. It begins to unpack and explore the networks of auction houses, antiques dealers, wealthy collectors, and journalists working, sometimes unwittingly, behind the scenes to influence our understandings of designed objects. The paper outlines how some elements of the history of Chandigarh’s modernist furniture which have value to predominantly white, Western, wealthy collectors, have been emphasized, while the proletarian and Indian histories and stories of these pieces have been ignored or erased. Further, the paper explores how such networks and systems systematically whitewash and simplify the history of designed objects, creating narratives designed to increase financial value and sales prices.

Utilizing Criminological, Art Historical, and Archaeological literature, the paper draws parallels between more fully explored markets for objects of archeology and art, suggesting the current operations and norms within markets for design, as with other markets of and for cultural heritage, continue racist, colonial narratives and caricatures of non-Western design, cultures, and peoples.