Rene Lalique and R Lalique Worldwide!

Lalique Museum Groundbreaking Ceremony: On November 8th, 2008, the unveiling of the cornerstone for the new Musee Lalique occurred at Wingen-su-Moder in the north of Alsace near the site of one of the glass factories of the great Rene Lalique. Partners in the project, which is expected to open in 2010 include the town of Wingen-sur-Moder, the Lalique Crystal Company, the Department of Bas-Rhin, and the Alsace Region. The museum will have official Museum status with the French government. This status will enable the Lalique Museum to accept deposits or loans of works from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée d’Orsay. The Museum will also have the right of preemption to acquire works in France, and it will be eligible for funding of acquisitions through a government fund for acquisitions by official Museums. This tribute to Rene Lalique, and what in effect will be a French National repository for his works for public display, has been a long time coming, and will provide a focal point not just in France, but also worldwide, for honoring the man who was not just the father of modern jewelry, but was also so important to the artistic and industrial development, implementation and adoption of decorative design in the first half of the 20th century with his fabulous glass creations. The museum will feature not just an exhibition hall, but also a garden and cafeteria, as well as an auditorium, a gift shop, and a teaching center. There will also be a place in the Museum for the works of Marc Lalique, as well space for temporary exhibitions. The Museum will apparently receive a good size group of around 200 items and 2000 original Rene Lalique drawings from the Lalique Crystal Company for exhibit, as well as items from the personal collection of Silvio Denz, the head of the Perfume and Fragrance Company, which owns just over 50% of the Lalique Crystal Company.

Readers, this is great news for R Lalique and Rene Lalique enthusiasts and collectors! A world class museum dedicated to Rene Lalique! All of the people, agencies, and companies involved in the Lalique Museum project are owed a debt of gratitude by R Lalique collectors worldwide. We will keep you updated as the project progresses and additional news becomes available.

The Lalique Museum:
Architects: Wilmotte, Paris, France
Scenographer: dUCKS scéno (photo credit)

The famous and unique Rene Lalique Tresor de la Mer Opalescent Perfume Oyster, of which only 100 were made in 1936 by Lalique for Saks, appeared on Ebay this past week and sold for just over $21,000 in spite of various damages. This model Lalique perfume bottle and oyster are the highest selling R Lalique Perfume ever at auction, having made a premium inclusive $216,000 at Rago Arts and Auction Center in New Jersey in November of 2006 when a basically original and complete example appeared in it’s original box with original tags. The retail price in 1936 was $50! A pearl of a price. The Ebay Item Number is 130285472525.

Februaruy 10th marks the 6 month anniversary of RLalique.com! We decided that a hefty discount on library items in the RLalique.com Library would be a great way to highlight the special occasion (well, special at least to those of us at RLalique.com World Headquarters:), and also to encourage users of the website to take a look at the nearly 1000 great items offered in the Library. Everything from posters (like the great Bonhams Poster pictured here), to biographies, and auction catalogs and original period material is available in the Library. There’s more R Lalique stuff by a country mile than you could ever find in one place anywhere on the planet. Whether your aim is education, decoration, scholarly collecting of important period material, a gift for a fellow collector or friend, or if you just want a few rare odds and ends to add some gravitas to your collection of the works of Rene Lalique, the RLalique.com Library has the goods. We don’t have multiple numbers of many of the items, so as you might imagine, it’s first come first served. And a reminder that we do have around 500 more items that are not yet listed in the Library due to time constraints. So if you are looking for something specific that you don’t see; it can’t hurt to ask! Ordering and payment details are listed on the main Library Page. The Library has been one of the unsung success stories of RLalique.com, providing a central place for anyone interested in R Lalique, Rene Lalique, and the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, to discover an exhaustive inventory of reference, collectible and original material, much of which can be found nowhere else except here, at RLalique.com. The sale runs thru the 20th of February, 10 days total. We have never discounted Library items before, and we don’t know if we ever will do so again. We hope you take the time to check it out.

So, regular readers of our blog know that we sell stuff on Ebay and it always sells!!! Well, always except once (and twice and thrice will surely come down the road no doubt). In January we posted a nice looking R Lalique Alaska Fox Seal/”Cachet” (hat tip to the language of the homeland of the great Rene Lalique), which still has the remnants of a cendrier attached to the bottom of an otherwise original and great looking Alaska. However, at $400 opening bid, it failed to sell. Hmmmmmm. As long as we’re rolling, we decided to bring it back at $1 and No Reserve. Should sell now! Of course, at that price, we cannot be re-writing the post here in the Blog or the Ad on Ebay. Heck, you get what you pay for ! The Ebay Item Number is 320338595407.

Our newest R Lalique listing has appeared on Ebay. It’s a highly opalescent Alaska Fox Seal that is making the rounds full circle from it’s birth as a seal, to it’s attachment by Lalique to a dish for sale as a cendrier, to it’s current state, where the dish is almost gone. The seal remains in it’s original state, (save the bit of dish attached) and is circa 1931. The Alaska has a starting price of only $400, well below recent sales prices of these seals, and no reserve. Our Ebay User I.D, is RLaliqueSales. We’ve posted the listing in the RLalique at Auction Section. The previous Ebay item number fo this seal was 320332093484. You can also check out our RLalique.com EbayAbout Me Page (well, About US really)! And finally, a good picture of the three foxes; the cendrier, the seal, and the former cendrier but now a seal, can be seen in our R Lalique Tailor Shop!

There was so much interest in the Fleurettes Perfume Bottle we listed on Ebay at the beginning of the year, that we decided to list the mate to the bottle we previously sold. It’s another good R Lalique Fleurettes Perfume Bottle (Garniture De Toilette), circa 1919. The perfume bottle has a starting price of only $300, less than half the $610 that the first one sold for, and no reserve. Our Ebay User I.D, is RLaliqueSales. We’ve posted the listing in the RLalique at Auction Section. You can also check out our RLalique.com Ebay About Me Page (well, About US really)! Of course this bottle sells with our famous (and popular) Satisfaction Assurance! And if you want to review the previously sold Fleurettes listing, Ebay Item 320329065774 is the previously Sold Fleurettes Perfume Listing

A couple of R Lalique comings and goings to mention to our readers. First, the Rene Lalique Grande Nue Statue that appeared this past week in France, and which was listed in our R Lalique at Auction Worldwide Section, was reported by the auction house Marseille-Encheres, to have sold for 15,000 Euros, or around $20,000 US dollars. A nice result for what looked from the photo to be a great statue. One of Rene Lalique’s finest designs says the Oracle. As always, we hope the buyer (and other bidders) told them that they saw the great statue here, at RLalique.com.

And on a separate auction news note, appearing at Freemans in Philadelphia on Friday January 30th this week as lot Number 772, is an unsigned Rene Lalique Clock; the R Lalique Deux Figurines Clock on base estimated at only $1000 to $1500. The Rene Lalique Clock Deux Figurines was sold both before and after WWII and was discontinued in 1951 according to the Catalogue Raisonne. Freemans says it’s in the “Lalique Style”, which it definitely is:). Of course as always, check it out for yourself. They have a great set of photos we think they will be happy to email you. If you call Freemans, ask for Doug Girton and don’t forget to let him know we sent you

By telling auction houses that you saw their items here, it makes it a lot easier for us to get you information on upcoming Rene Lalique related pieces. As auction houses find that spreading the word here at RLalique.com results in serious R Lalique bidders, we discover a lot more information in our inbox that we didn’t have to go looking for! And that info goes directly to the benefit of anyone following these pages that is interested in buying R Lalique.

At Bonhams in Honiton (UK) later this month, appears an item described as follows:

Lot No: 399 A René Lalique lidded preserve bowl of oval form, decorated with frosted and polished glass flower heads, the base marked ‘R Lalique’, 12cm long.

Here is a direct link to the Lot 399 Item Page at the Bonhams Website!

And what we see when we get there is a Dinard (Rose) Covered Box, that likely sustained some damage in its day to the cover, and which has apparently (the photo angle is not good) been cleverly polished to create an object with a purpose! A nice demonstration that all alterations aren’t bad; the point is to know what you’re getting and make your purchase and price decision accordingly. This is a positive example of a great looking R Lalique design item made useful again. Of some disappointment is the fact that they don’t address in the listing if you get to keep the spoon if you buy the box! Of course, the way we heard it, it was not the box, but the dish that ran away with the spoon. In any event, we have a side by side photo on our R Lalique Tailor Shop Missing Material - Alterations Page where you can see this box pictured next to one without a spoon.

Who is that clean shaven appraiser valuing the Yellow Amber R Lalique Bacchantes Vase at the US Antiques Roadshow in Palm Springs California in June last year? The episode aired this past week. The vase was a wedding gift in 1932 to the owner’s parents. Wonderful to see a great piece of R Lalique that has been in the same family since new. The owner almost had his bubble burst near the end of the appraisal, but everything turned out quite well! Note: You’ll have to select your video format before playing the video.

And if you need your own appraisal of an R Lalique item, check out our Rene Lalique Appraisal page here at RLalique.com.

Our newest R Lalique listing has appeared on Ebay. It’s a highly opalescent Alaska Fox Seal that is making the rounds full circle from it’s birth as a seal, to it’s attachment by Lalique to a dish for sale as a cendrier, to it’s current state, where the dish is almost gone. The seal remains in it’s original state, (save the bit of dish attached) and is circa 1931. The Alaska has a starting price of only $400, well below recent sales prices of these seals, and no reserve. Our Ebay User I.D, is RLaliqueSales. We’ve posted the listing in the RLalique at Auction Section, it’s Ebay Item 320332093484. You can also check out our RLalique.com Ebay About Me Page (well, About US really)! And finally, a good picture of the three foxes; the cendrier, the seal, and the former cendrier but now a seal, can be seen in our R Lalique Tailor Shop!

In 1906, James Oviatt left Salt Lake City and headed to Los Angeles to make his fortune. 5 years later in 1911, he partnered up with Frank Alexander to create what would become THE high end fashionable clothing store in Los Angeles: Alexander and Oviatt.

Oviatt traveled extensively buying fabrics and keeping up with fashions worldwide to bring his clients the latest and greatest from around the world. 1925 saw Oviatt at the Paris Exposition, where he gave the great Rene Lalique a commission to fabricate the architectural glass for his planned Oviatt Building in Los Angeles, which was to become the first Art Deco building in the city. More than 30 tons of glass made for the new Oviatt Building were shipped thru the Panama Canal and installed all over the 12 story building.

Lalique also created a perfume bottle to commemorate the opening of the building, the distinctive “Le Parfum Des Anges” which includes in it’s design the seal of the City of Los Angeles, and which is pictured below.

Oviatt and his wife lived on the top of the building, in a 10 room penthouse with two floors of outdoor terraces that became famous not just for the parties and the celebrities that frequently visited there, but also for the magnificent R Lalique glass which can still be found there to this day. The Penthouse terraces had a pool, tennis courts, a sand beach, a putting green, and gardens. Everyone from Howard Hughes to Errol Flynn frequented the penthouse. It was in its day, and it remains 80 years later, an amazing place. The Oviatts lived in the penthouse for nearly 50 years until the mid 70’s.

Recently, the penthouse has been magnificently restored, and can be rented for weddings, parties, etc. The original roof top pool is gone, but you can party there both indoors and out with no curfew on your live music. Rumor is that the penthouse is also rented from time to time by LA celebs wanting privacy and an in town get-away. Here is a link to a Video Tour of the Oviatt Penthouse (sorry, it’s from TV Bride, showing the penthouse as a place to rent for a wedding :)!

Also, additional information is contained at this link to the Oviatt Building Website. As the building is in the National Register of Historic Places, here is a link to added information at the LA Conservancy. And finally, here is a link to a very Detailed History Of The Building. It is possible to get a tour of the Penthouse under certain circumstances. The Oviatt is an LA Landmark, an Iconic Art Deco Structure, and a lasting testament to the work of Rene Lalique! If you’re in LA and decide to inquire either at the Oviatt or at the Conservancy, don’t forget to tell them you read about it here, at RLalique.com!

……………………..there are men who do nothing all day but good deeds. They are called phila…er — er — philanth-er — er, yes…er …..good-deed-doers! And their hearts are no bigger than yours. But! They have one thing you haven’t got! A Testimonial!

Our newest R Lalique listing has appeared on Ebay. It’s a good R Lalique Fleurettes Perfume Bottle (Garniture De Toilette), circa 1919. The perfume botlle has a starting price of only $200, well below recent sales prices, and no reserve. Our Ebay User I.D, is RLaliqueSales. We’ve posted the listing in the RLalique at Auction Section. It’s Ebay item number 320329065774. And here is a link to the Really Big Photo Page, to see a giant photo of the Fleurettes. You can also check out our RLalique.com Ebay About Me Page (well, About US really)! Every Ebay item we’ve listed since the inception of RLalique.com has sold (well, one sold the day after the Ebay expiration to a bidder that had regrets about not bidding higher)! We chalk it up to good items, low starting prices, the trust we’ve established with collectors that know us, and our famous (and popular) Satisfaction Assurance!

Lalique Perfume Bottles: A short trip down memory lane as a great looking light blue tiara stoppered R Lalique Perfume Bottle Bouchon Mures walks into the US Antiques Roadshow in Miami Florida in 2001 for a Lalique Appraisal. Here’s a link to the PBS website, where you’ll have to pick your video format to play the video.

Old Style Blackberry In Miami

And it goes without saying that if you need a Rene Lalique Valuation, check our the Lalique Appraisals page here at RLalique.com.

We’ve listed a great book, The Collection of the Lalique Museum in Hakone Japan, on Ebay this week. The book is in new condition, and has unbelievable photos of the Museum’s collection of R Lalique items, including some fantastically rare objects. The Ebay Item Number is 320326861332, and here is a link to the Really Big Photo Page of photos from the book, as well as a link to our About Us Page On Ebay. And don’t forget to check out the R Lalique Library here at RLalique.com, where you find hundreds of rare books, period publications, and other great R Lalique reference material. We search the world to bring you the most informative and the best reference and educational material on the works of the great Rene Lalique. There is no collection of R Lalique reference material available anywhere in the world that compares to what you’ll find in the library here at RLalique.com. This great museum collection book from Japan, is just one of the countless reference treasures that we have reached out around the world to find, and make available to you.

The great looking dark colored R Lalique Senart Vase that appeared in Istanbul at the Alif Art Auction House, and which we publicized both in an RLalique Blog Entry, and in our R Lalique Auction Section, sold for a hammer price of 11,000 Turkish Lira Saturday at the Sofa Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. We don’t know the ins and outs about the refundability of the VAT in Turkey, but with the 6% buyer’s premium and the 18% VAT on both the premium and the purchase price, it adds up to a total of 13,760 Turkish Lira, or around $9100, of which $1300 represents the VAT on the purchase price. Word from the sale room was that there were several bidders including multiple phone bidders and left bids. And the word from both the Sofa and from around the globe was that in the fray were multiple bidders who had seen the item here, on RLalique.com. This would include the winning bidder, who saw the Senart on this website, and who reached out across continents to acquire this rare R Lalique Vase. A great R Lalique result against an auction house estimate of $825. One other reason for this result is that the auction house made bidding easy by accepting credit cards, by handling shipping, by the availability of phone lines, by responding promptly to inquiries for condition reports and photos, and by a reasonable bidder registration form. This was an R Lalique auction trifecta; a great R Lalique vase, a bidder friendly auction house, and of course, the global reach of RLalique.com. And now they’ve heard in Istanbul what they’ve heard in auction rooms around the world: I saw it at RLalique.com!