PARIS—The 13th edition of the Pavillon des Arts et du Design, taking place from April 1 through 5 in the Tuileries Gardens, is putting Italian midcentury design center stage. "There are so many things to say about Italy. It’s full of culture and has a glorious past and present, especially for design," says Marc-Antoine Patissier, of the Parisian gallery HP Le Studio, which is showing a thin-stemmed 1948 Luigi Caccia Dominioni floor lamp anchored by a river rock — one of only seven such pieces in the world — for €75,000 ($96,000) and a 1950 Franco Albini walnut table for €25,000 ($32,000).

The Italian theme is by no means binding, however, and the 80 participating dealers are bringing a wide variety of wares dating from 1860 onward. London’s Carpenters Workshop Gallery, for instance, is featuring a half dozen new works by the Dutch furniture designer Sebastian Brajkovic, while Galerie Hopkins-Custot’s pièce de résistance is the 1956 Béret rouge, Jean Dubuffet’s first "assemblage" — an oil on canvas mixed with found objects — priced at $1.6 million. Modernity, from Stockholm, is asking $85,000 for a lacquered pine desk designed in 1946 by Rudolph Schindler for the midcentury modern Armon House, which he also designed, in Los Angeles, and approximately $220,000 for a 1989 stainless-steel chaise longue by Ron Arad. "Design Center" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.