Art+Auction - March 2016_

LONDON

DREWEATTS & BLOOMSBURY

JANUARY 14: BIBLIOPHILE SALE

320 LOTS SOLD FOR

£79,980 ($116,000)

TOP LOT:At the house’s

monthly sale dedicated to

the category, an atlas by

Gerard Mercator, made

sometime prior to the 17th

century, was the highest-

selling lot at £2,400 ($3,500),

exceeding its £1,500 ($2,200)

high estimate. Eighty-eight

lots from the reference

library of the late ceramics

expert Tim Clarke opened

the sale, all of which found

buyers, contributing £18,872

($27,000) toward the over-

all total. The Clarke trove

included a rare 1928 cata-

logue of the world’s finest

private collection of Meissen

porcelain, assembled by

German banker Gustav

von Klemperer. Though only

150 copies exist, the cata-

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ART+AUCTION MARCH 2016 (^) | BLOUINARTINFO.COM
logue sold for a low £280
($404) on an estimate of
£600 to £800 ($870–1,200).
It had been assumed that
the physical collection was
destroyed in the bombing
of Dresden in 1945, but in
1951 it was rediscovered, and
in 1991 it was restored and
returned to the family. With an
estimate of £1,500 to £2,000
($2,200–3,000), a copy of
Interprétation des peintures
dessinées sur un service de
TOP
5
NEW YORK
DESIGN
MASTERWORKS
CHRISTIE’S
DECEMBER 17
The sale realized
$1,692,500 for 15
out of 28 lots dur-
ing New York’s annual
Design Week.
In total, four sales
garnered $13 million.
(^1)
CLAUDE LALANNE
Les Grandes Berces
bench, 2000
$425,000
(est. $250–350,000)
(^2)
WENDELL CASTLE
Victory desk and
chair, 1980
$221,000
(est. $120–180,000)

• CLAUDE LALANNE
  Hosta chair, 1972
  $221,000
  (est. $80,000–120,000)
  (^3)
  JEAN PROUVE
  Sanatorium armchair,
  circa 1932
  $197,000
  (est. $140–180,000)
  (^4)
  CLAUDE LALANNE
  Trône de Pauline chair, 1990
  $161,000
  (est. $120–180,000)
  (^5)
  FLAVIO POLI
  A Valva Siderale vase,
  1954
  $75,000
  (est. $40–60,000)
  LONDON
  SOTHEBY’S
  JANUARY 19: OF ROYAL AND
  NOBLE DESCENT, INCLUDING
  WORKS OF ART FROM
  PALAZZO SACCHETTI, ROME
  405 LOTS SOLD FOR £2,483,781
  ($3.5 million)
  TOP LOT:A large Majolica
  footed dish, attributed to the
  “Painter of the Apollo Basin,”
  was the highest-selling lot
  of the auction when it landed
  a final price of £257,000
  ($367,000). The work
  was consigned by a private
  European collector and
  carried an estimate of
  £30,000 to £40,000 ($43–
  57,000). Second-highest was
  a matching set of 12 Chinese
  famille-verte province plates
  from the Qing dynasty (1644–
  1912), which sold for £70,000
  ($100,000), nearly doubling
  its £40,000 ($57,000)
  high estimate. A rare Dutch
  terrestrial globe from 1607
  by well-known cartographers
  and globe-makers Jacob
  Floris van Langren and his
  son Arnold Floris van Langren
  came in third. Measuring
  21½ inches in diameter
  and dedicated to the council
  and the people of Zwolle,
  Amsterdam, it sold to a
  private European collector
  for £62,500 ($89,000),
  more than quadrupling
  its £15,000 ($21,000)
  high estimate. A 17th-
  century portrait of a man
  in a rare Dutch auricular-
  style carved gilt-wood
  frame, the composition in
  oil on engraving copper
  plate, soared beyond
  its £6,000 ($8,600) high
  estimate to realize
  £41,250 ($59,000). From
  the silver offerings, a
  parcel-gilt silver poman-
  der from the Netherlands,
  circa 1620, commanded
  £30,000 ($43,000),
  nearly quadrupling its
  £8,000 ($11,000) high
  estimate. The results
  of the auction, which
  offered paintings,
  sculpture, furniture, and
  decorative arts, exceeded
  the house’s presale
  estimate of £1.4 million
  to £2.1 million ($2–3 mil-
  lion). The offerings
  drew interest from
  31 countries, with 20
  percent of buyers being
  new to Sotheby’s. In all,
  88 percent of lots for
  sale found new homes,
  with nearly 60 percent
  of them exceeding
  their high estimates.
  table, a rare volume on the
  Etruscan-inspired porcelain
  service commissioned by
  Ferdinand IV, also from
  Clarke’s collection, realized
  £850 ($1,200). Only four
  recorded copies of the book
  had appeared at auction
  in the past, the most recent
  in 1989. This one resurfaced
  in 1978. Monographie de
  l’oeuvre de Bernard Palissy
  by Henri Delange and
  Adrien Jacques Sauzay,
  written in Paris in 1862,
  sold for £480 ($690)
  on a £400-to-£600 ($600–

900. estimate. Palissy,
     a French Huguenot potter,
     craftsman, and engineer,
     spent 16 years attempting
     to master the art of manu-
     facturing Chinese porce-
     lain. Unsuccessful, he
     eventually moved to Paris,
     where he worked under
     the patronage of Catherine
     de’ Medici, with a kiln located
     in the Tuileries Gardens.
     The sale offered works
     spanning art, architecture,
     travel, British topography,
     natural history, science,
     and literature, among other
     categories, and 320 of the
     361 lots offered found new
     homes, for a sell-through
     rate by lot of 89 percent. The
     auction narrowly surpassed
     the house’s presale estimate
     of £76,640 ($111,000).
     BY LIZA M.E. MUHLFELD