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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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–
- 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