A CHAIR bought for £5 at a junk shop is expected to sell for thousands of pounds at auction.

The rare elm and wicker high back chair was designed by Koloman Moser in 1902.

More than 100 years later, a member of the public came across the piece of furniture in a junk shop in Brighton.

The owner has decided to put it up for auction at Sworders auction house on January 25.

A similar Vienna Secession chair sold for $22,000 in New York in December 2019.

Sworders experts say they expect the chair to sell for between £2,000 and £3,000 at their two-day design sale in the new year.

The chair was found at an unidentified shop in Brighton earlier this year.

The Argus: Chair bought for £5 at junk sale expected to sell for thousands at auction Chair bought for £5 at junk sale expected to sell for thousands at auction

The vendor, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “When I got the chair home, I had a closer look and thought it looked really interesting.

“I emailed some pictures to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but no one got back to me.

“My next stop was Sworders. I emailed their design specialist John Black, and he got back to me very quickly.”

John Black, of Sworders, said the scarcely seen chair was immediately of interest to him.

“My first impression was ‘how rare is that?’ The vendor had done some research, but was unsure if the attribution was correct, so I decided the best course of action would be to speak to Dr Christian Witt-Dörring, a specialist on the Vienna Secession and curator of many exhibitions,” he said.

“He confirmed the attribution and praised this example for the dignity of its original condition.”

The chair is an example of the Vienna Secession movement. Designed by Koloman Moser, a teacher at the Vienna School of Applied Arts, it is a modern reinterpretation of a traditional 18th century ladder-back chair.

The lone decorative element is a chequerboard-like grid of the webbing on the seat and the back of the chair.