Archive for the ‘R Lalique and Rene Lalique Auction News and Results’ Category
Rene Lalique’s Perruches Vases Fly High: New Records At South Kensington
November 25th, 2013
 R. Lalique once again made a strong showing at the Christie’s South Kensington semi-annual Lalique sale on November 21st.
Vases led the way with several world record prices, yielding a sale total including buyer’s premium of £596,875 (all results are reported to include the premium), or about $960,000 at an exchange rate used throughout this article of about 1.61 U.S. dollars per British pound.
Of the total 157 lots in the sale, approximately 37 were modern crystal reproductions or just modern crystal designs, leaving 120 original R. Lalique pieces on offer. Of those 120 works of Rene Lalique, 20 failed to sell, for a take-up rate of about 83% on the original works. The 100 sold R. Lalique items added up to £484,724 or an average price of about £4850 ($7800) per lot.
 Top sellers were led by a Perruches Vase in blue glass that made a surprisingly strong £55,000, or about $88,500. Next was a tie between two lots: an amber glass Perruches Vase and a pair of Lausanne Light Fixtures. Each of these lots made £32,500 or about $52,500. Fourth place went to a frosted Serpent Vase making £30,000 ($48,500) followed by another Perruches Vase, this one in opalescent glass, which sold for £27,500 ($44,500).
The top five lots accounted for £177,500 or over 1/3 of the R. Lalique total. 4 of the top 5 prices were for vases, and 3 of those vases were Perruches Vases.
 Some other notable prices include an opalescent Ceylan vase for £13,750 ($22,000), a Dinard Box at £11,250 ($18,000), and a Quatre Cigalas Perfume Bottle at £4,375 ($7,000).
The price of the blue Perruches Vase, the last lot of the sale, represents a world record price at auction for a blue Perruches Vase, and for any Perruches Vase, exceeding the price of approximately $75,500 set in these same salerooms just 6 months ago. The price on the Ceylan is also a world record price for any Ceylan Vase at auction, as is the price for the frosted Serpent Vase, though colored glass Serpents have sold higher. Finally, the Dinard Box total also is a likely world record.
 Here is a link to all the results (including the lot descriptions).
As usual, the staff at Christie’s South Kensington, led by the experienced Joy McCall, did a great job of assembling a diverse group of attractive and desirable items, and working with all potential bidders in a pleasant and professional manner.
Another successful sale for Christie’s South Kensington and another great day for the great Rene Lalique.
Tags: R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, R Lalique Vases and Rene Lalique Vases, Rene Lalique Boxes and R Lalique Covered Boxes, Rene Lalique Lighting: R Lalique Lighting Fixtures
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A Hibou Car Mascot Appears At Auction: Buckle-Up!
October 19th, 2013
October 20th at Artcurial in Paris will see the first appearance at a major auction of a Hibou (Owl) Car Mascot in many years.
The general storyline amongst many dealers and collectors is that the Renard (Fox) Car Mascot is the rarest of the commercial models. But there have been several foxes appear in the last decade, and only a couple of owls (not including for either model any that have appeared as part of an entire R. Lalique Car Mascot collection). It is easily possible and even likely, that the rarest of the commercial mascots is not the fox, but is the owl.
How will this translate into price for the rare Hibou? We will all know soon enough. There are many variables but there are also many collectors missing the owl from their mascot collections. And times have changed in the bidding scene at auctions.
In the past, only a bidding ring of dealers might know about a particular piece at auction and possibly a small number of collectors or others that could be co-opted, cajoled, or threatened into not competing against them **. But this has changed dramatically with the appearance of this website and the attendant individual collector bidding on major pieces triggered by the Worldwide Auction Listings at RLalique.com. Now all interested parties can find out about most items that appear at auction, and individual collectors and others can compete worldwide with dealers, museums and other collectors for rare pieces. And notwithstanding reports of continuing efforts to suppress bidding at auction by certain notorious persons, now there are often just too many outside bidders for conspirators to even know about in advance, let alone “get to” ***.
 Also, other techniques such as trash talking a piece, claiming it’s fake, or claiming it’s fatally damaged in order to put potential bidders off the item are also common techniques for some. We even received on email from one regular dealer in R. Lalique claiming this owl was cracked. Hmmmmmm. We’ve seen this barking before with a great opalescent Vitesse and a Renard at auction as just two examples), but of course, the pool of potential bidders is now so large, it’s just difficult to put them all off with wisecracks **** about likely fairy tale condition issues. And of course, most serious bidders will confirm condition directly with the auction house, and/or engage an independent consultant on major purchases.
The auction house has placed an extremely conservative estimate on the owl. In 1987 for example, before the peak of prices around 1990, a Hibou appeared at auction and sold for over 378,000 French Francs including the buyer’s premium. At the time, 26 years ago, this was the equivalent of over $66,000.
We are aware of reports of Hibou sales made privately in the past several years including at least one sold through this website, for prices that are multiples of the previous record auction price discussed above. These sales range into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. To put this in perspective, we are aware of a sale of an owl mascot to a dealer in the last decade for a reported $150,000.
With the Fox Car Mascot making successive auction price records at its two most recent auction appearances (Fox Record Price 1, Fox Record Price 2), we would expect no less from what may be an even rarer chance to obtain this elusive prize.
 Should be a wild ride ending a bit above the estimate :).
** See a series of articles published at RLalique.com discussing bid rigging at auctions.
*** “Get to” in this usage means influence.
**** A “wisecrack” is a clever remark.
Tags: R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, Rene Lalique Car Mascots and R Lalique Car Mascots
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Rene Lalique Blue Perruches Vase & Comete Car Mascot Make R. Lalique World Records
May 24th, 2013
The works of Rene Lalique, with some modern crystal pieces mixed-in, have been a longtime semi-annual attraction at Christie’s South Kensington in London. The first of this year’s Lalique sales had a total of 185 lots of which roughly 150 were R. Lalique. As usual most areas of the collecting field were on offer including everything from vases, perfume bottles, car mascots, and plates and bowls, to perfume burners, seals, architectural items, clocks, decanters, and lighting.
 The sale started and ended with a run of vases, but the high seller was found among the car mascots, where Lot 99, a good looking Comete Car Mascot made £79,875 all-in, or about $121,000 at 1.51 Brit pounds per US Dollar**. This was against a pre-sale estimate of £35,000 to £45,000. The final price is thought to be a world record auction price for the Comete. Undoubtedly the overall good condition influenced the final price, and overcame the fact that this rare model has appeared at auction at least once a year on average for the last 5 years. The runner-up bidder, a well known member of the local trade, was apparently somewhat disappointed in failing to secure the lot. It was reported that as the runner-up (to be) bid was topped, the runner-up bidder turned and walked out of the salesroom without waiting for the hammer to fall.
Next high seller was a good looking Red Hirondelles Vase, which made £73,875/$112,000 selling as the sale’s final Lot 185 against a pre-sale estimate of £40,000 – £50,000. The final total was about $20,000 below the record setting*** Hirondelles Vase which made over $132,000 in November of 2010.
 This is a good time to note that for higher end items (a recent extremely rare car mascot a bit of an exception of course), the trend at Christie’s South Ken for R.Lalique under the direction of the knowledgeable and experienced Joy McCall, has been to go with conservative estimates and reserves. This policy appears to have paid off with generally strong to high prices from the resulting bidding interest. The Hirondelles and the Comete were no exception, a trend followed by all 15 of the high selling items, every one of which exceeded their high estimate on an all-in basis.
Tied for third high seller was a green glass Gros Scarabees Vase (Beetles Vase) which sold as Lot 181 for £49,875/$75,500 against an estimate of £25,000 – £35,000.
 A pre-sale run through of the sale lots would have left most astute observers figuring that these three pieces in one order or the other would be the three high sellers.
But the other lot that tied for third high seller was a total surprise. The Blue Perruches Vase selling as Lot 182 in the final run of large colored glass vases. It more than tripled the pre-sale estimate for a world record price at auction for a Blue Perruches and a world record price at auction for any Perruches Vase making £49,875/$75,500, the same price as the Beetles Vase, against a pre-sale estimate of £15,000 – £20,000.
Reportedly, there was determined interest on the colored Perruches Vases in the sale from a Russian bidder. So it would only take one other competitor with a lot of money and not a lot of concern to make a show stopping price. For this model, in this color, this price is a show stopper no doubt. The previous alignment of R. Lalique planets would have the green Gros Scarabees making around 3 (or more) times a Blue Perruches. But here they made identical final prices.
 If the consignor of the Blue Perruches and the Gros Scarabees was the same, then considering the reported OK level of quality and condition of the two pieces, the two vase total strikes us as in the range of reasonable for the current market, but who would have guessed how they’d get to that total!
Rounding out the top 5 was a 42.5 cm by 52 cm rectangular panel originally designed for the Cote D’Azur Pullman-Express. The panel Merles Et Raisins (Blackbirds and Grapes) more than tripled the low end of the £10,000 – £15,000 estimate for an all-in final price of £35,000/$53,000.
After the top 5 high sellers, the next 10 high sellers were all vases! And they all were outsold by the Blue Perruches! This group of 10 included an amber glass Gros Scarabees Vase at £33,750/$51,000 that sold to the Musee Lalique (which purchased around a half dozen R.Lalique items), an amber glass Serpent Vase which was about 12% below the world record for that model at £32,500/$49,000, a red Poissons Vase at the same price as the Serpent, a green Poissons Vase and a cased green Perruches Vase both at £31,250/$47,000, a green Perruches Vase at £21,250/$32,000, and a short looking but rare blue glass Milan Vase at £17,500/$26,500.
 Reasonably common perfume bottles were very strong throughout the sale (Ambre Antique £2500/$3800 or Le Lys for D’Orsay at £2375/$3600 for example), and one added price of note was the very strong world record auction price of £5250/$8000 paid for a Dinard Box !
On the flip side**** of the preceding, Seals (cachets) and Paperweights were notably so-so to soft, with the very rare Pelican Seal selling as Lot 85 for only £1063/$1600. Of course these are much more narrow collecting fields and it takes two to tango to the top, as American watchers of Dancing With The Stars might know.
 In the end, we saw the usual worldwide smattering of bidders from the United States to Russia, Luthuania to France, and plenty of places in between that is the hallmark of demand for the works of the great Rene Lalique. The sale totaled £799,812/$1,210,000 or roughly $9,200 per sold lot with the modern crystal pieces bringing the average down of course. If you take out the 20 modern crystal lots which made £36,313/$54,800 for an average of about $2750, then you have 111 Rene Lalique lots making £763,499/$1,152,000 or an average of about $10,400. The 131 sold lots out of the 185 offered made the take-up rate a somewhat disappointing but respectable 70% (that rate would be higher if you ignore all the modern stuff). Christie’s noted that by value, the take-up was about 90%, so the majority of the unsold lots were the relatively lower value items.
The last 7 lots of the sale, all colored vases, accounted for £292,375/$441,500 or about 36% of the entire sale total. Not too far from that, the 7 high sellers made £354,250/$535,700 or about 44% of the sale. The vast majority of the sale in value was for the great vases. Here’s a link to the Results In Lot Order
All-in-all, another great day for the great Lalique!
** Unless mentioned otherwise, all prices in this article are on an all-in basis and at roughly a 1.51 pounds to dollars ratio. In practice of course, some buyers have the added expense of local VAT, while others may have their local import duties and shipping, and some buyers may pay several percentage points more for currency conversions based on their payment method and other factors.
*** The red glass Hirondelles which sold in November 2010 set the record for the highest price ever bid for an R. Lalique colored glass vase at auction. On an all-in basis, it was the 2nd highest priced colored vase ever sold at auction. And of course, it was the record at auction both bid and all-in for any Hirondelles Vase.
**** Flip Side for those of you into oldies but goodies, originated with 45’s; that is 45 rpm records. The hit song (the advertised song) would be on the A side. The B side, containing some other song you probably didn’t want to listen to, was called the flip side as you had to flip the record over to play it. Now it’s used almost in the same way as “the other side of the coin” (makes sense doesn’t it?), or the opposite side, such as the opposite point of view, or just oppositely (which is our use here).
Tags: R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, R Lalique Vases and Rene Lalique Vases, Rene Lalique Boxes and R Lalique Covered Boxes, Rene Lalique Car Mascots and R Lalique Car Mascots
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Rene Lalique Sales Records: Highest Selling Lalique Auction Total In History With Just 16 R. Lalique Lots
February 18th, 2013
 There’s no more appropriate place for the sale of great R. Lalique items than Paris. Rene Lalique spent most of his life in Paris. He lived and died in perhaps the greatest of the European metropolises. Most of his inspired and unique works were created there, and it was there in 1900 and again in 1925 that Lalique rose above the fray; rose above the crowded field of artists and designers, and left his contemporaries behind as he captured the attention and the imagination of the world.
Many of his works, both unique and commercial show a heavy Japanese artistic influence. In a way, you could predict that perhaps the greatest of all French decorative artists, growing up in the rich pastoral countryside would embrace the natural world motif as a primary artistic expression in the same way that countless generations of Japanese artists had done before him.
 But you could not predict the new heights to which Lalique would take this traditional expressive motif, as he applied his interpretation of the surrounding world not only to artistically unique objects, but also to the mass production of the new art glass which he brought into the homes of so many people around the world. Echoing an old 20th century American summer camp fireside story, the “foo is on the other shoot”. For today, a whole new generation of eastern artists is trying to build upon the works of the great Frenchman; works that stand squarely on the shoulders of their own native ancestral designers.
So it is only fitting that the collection of Tokeo Horiuchi, the enthusiastic collector of turn of the century French decorative art; art which so clearly echoes the motifs of his homeland, would be destined for sale not in Tokyo, a center of high level natural world artistic efforts for so many long past generations, but would instead be brought to Paris, the scene, the home and the leading light of the great wave of the genre that brought Lalique’s work not just to one city or one country, but to most of the civilized world.
It’s also fitting that in a sale heavily laden with so many of the names you would expect to hear when assembling an entourage of the great decorative arts achievers of the day; names like Brandt, Cartier, Baccarat, Daum, Dunand, Frere, Galle, Guimard, Jallot, Majorelle, Sevres, Mackintosh and Morris; that the high seller in such a sale would be a non-commercial object made for the very 1900 exposition which was the foundation event for the assemblage. Yes friends, in the rural Midwestern United States, an area not unfamiliar to this writer, they call it a rail or a railing. And no, when they say rail, they aren’t talking about the bird family that includes the coot, though there are quite a few old coots ** and old railbirds *** back in the Western Reserve ****.
 Heck, when you think Midwestern railing, you think of a split piece of timber laying horizontally between two posts somewhere outdoors that keeps your livestock in place, and not exhibition visitors both astonished and at bay. For something like that, you’d need a fancy name and material other than timber, and in Paris for a high seller they had both.
Cire perdue bronze, in the form of a nude butterfly woman; a rail piece that can stand on its own with no fence posts needed :). And a railing that can stand on its own when compared artistically and monetarily to the best of the best in the 1900 design world. Oh yea, and it’s not a railing in Paris, it’s a balustrade…. a great French word that means “railing”. So yes, there are thousands of miles of balustrades in the rural midwest, but of course most of the inhabitants (the cows AND the people) can’t speak French so they don’t know it!
 There were 137 lots in the February 16th sale at Sotheby’s, of which 17 were the works of Lalique. Against an estimate of €200,000 – €300,000, the great Femme Ailee rail sold for a hammer price of €1,050,000 and a premium inclusive total of €1,240,750. At today’s exchange rate of about 1.375 dollars to the Euro (a rate used for all other approximate dollar prices in this article), the railing part made $1,706,000.
This same railing had previously sold at Christie’s New York Rockefeller Center Salesrooms as Lot 111 on December 10th, 1998 where it made $134,500 including the buyers premium *****. That’s less than 1/12 of the current price! It is one of five railing parts (having three different designs), several of which are shown in an iconic photo of the Lalique display at the 1900 Exhibition Universelle in Paris.
The sale price is likely the 2nd highest price ever achieved at auction for a single work by Rene Lalique, the Lady Trent Doors being the highest. We can safely say it’s the highest price at auction for a Rene Lalique Railing piece and it most definitely was the high selling item in the entire Sotheby’s sale.
Another new high seller for Lalique, and a world record price at auction for a Lalique Pocket Watch, was the very cool Butterflies and Bats Pocket Watch. It was also the 2nd highest selling lot in the entire sale, outselling an amazing Bureau Aux Archidees Louis Majorelle Desk! The small 2 inch wide jewel of a watch made an all-in €696,750 against a pre-sale estimate of €150,000 – €200,000. In dollars it’s about $958,000.
After the watch, things fell off really quickly (just kidding), as the third high seller for Lalique and fourth for the entire auction, the quintessential nude female pendant with comporting chain, sold for €312,750 or about $430,000, once again blowing out the estimated price of €100,000 – €120,000.
 Fourth in line for price honors was the 9 centimeters long and stunningly realistic enamel, gold, silver and diamond Butterfly Brooch which hit €300,750 all-in, or about $413,000 against an estimated price of only €60,000 – €80,000.
Fifth in the price department was a fabulous and so R. Lalique Brooch featuring the classic Lalique drop baroque pearl under a female face spreading to detailed enamel work. The estimate was €100,000 – €120,000 but the price was €216,750 or about $298,000.
In some ways the most surprising price of the sale was for lot 126, a clear and frosted Sauterelles Vase with patina that against a reasonable to strong estimate of €4000 – €6000 made an all-in €13,750 or about $19,000.
All in all, of the 17 Lalique lots, 16 sold, the only exception being the lowest estimated of them all, a Font-Romeu Vase with heavy patina estimated at €2500 – €3500.
The 16 sellers made €3,410,975 or $4,690,000 making this the highest selling group of R. Lalique at any single auction in history. Quality not quantity was key. Furthermore, every one of the 16 lots that sold made an all-in total that exceeded its high estimate. The average price for the sold lots was €213,186 or $293,000. An amazing group of numbers and another great day for the great Rene Lalique.
** In the U.S., an “old coot” is a kind of a simple minded harmless older person. But you can add some words like crazy or senile to the beginning to give it a more robust and a bit less harmless meaning.
*** A “rail bird” is a member of the rail bird family, which as we mentioned includes coots. But if you put the two words together, “railbird” in the U.S. is any sports enthusiast, but specifically a horse-racing fan who sits on, leans on, or hangs out near the track rail at horse races or workouts.
**** At the time of the founding of the USA, the 13 colonies agreed to compromise many of the land claims found in their original land grants, specifically the ones that gave them all the land to the next ocean. In return the new government assumed the States’ debts from the Revolutionary War. When Connecticut gave up its expansive land claims, it retained a claim to over 3,300,000 acres on some land in the Northwest Territory that was set aside for future settlement including land reserved for those who lost their homes in the war. That land, which now comprises part of Northern Ohio, was (and still is) called the Western Reserve; land reserved in the west. If you go there today, and head out east of Cleveland (named after the head of the Connecticut Land Company survey crew Moses Cleaveland … a printer dropped the first “a” from his name to save space) to Chagrin Falls and the Chagrin River Valley, you’ll find an amazing idyllic architectural and geographic make-up very much like the old Connecticut countryside. And if were wondering, 3,300,000 acres would equal nearly 6% of the entire UK.
***** The sale catalogue from the 1998 Christie’s New York Sale on December 10, 1998 is available for purchase (including the sales results) in the Decorative Arts Catalogues section in the Library here at RLalique.com. This Library section alone has nearly 500 different auction catalogues of sales, all of which include some Rene Lalique works in the catalogue. These are in addition to the separate Library section which is devoted to totally Lalique Auction Catalogues. Over 100 of those are listed there for sale.
Tags: R Lalique Architecture - Rene Lalique Architecture, R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, Rene Lalique Jewelry and R Lalique Jewelry
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Rene Lalique Perfume Bottles: World Record Price For Any R. Lalique Perfume Bottle And For ANY Perfume Bottle At Auction!
October 14th, 2012
 There is a saying in Japan, “食欲の秋”, that describes the harvest season thusly: “Autumn, a season for strong appetite!” Occurring from late September to late November, Autumn is the harvest time in Japan for everything from rice, to Matsutake mushrooms and sweet chestnuts. Apparently Rene Lalique Perfume Bottles will have to be added to that traditional list :). For in Roppongi Hills, located in the Minato Ward of Tokyo, at Est-Ouest’s ** annual Autumn Sale, buyers from around the world displayed a whole lot of appetite for the great Rene Lalique Perfume Bottles which were the heart and vast majority of the over 100 R. Lalique glass lots offered on October 6th, 2012.
The Est-Ouest sale got off to a great start, with the first 98 lots being R. Lalique Perfume Bottles. All but 5 sold, for an over 90% sales rate to start off the sale. There were a few more perfume bottles offered later in the sale mixed in with a handful of other R. Lalique items, but these did not fare as well as the great opening run.
 Prices were solid to strong across the board, perhaps echoing the French literary figure and philosopher Albert Camus closer to their ancestral home: “Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower”.
Two world record prices were set when the 10 centimeters tall Lot 41 came under the hammer. Sirenes, the 1905 mythical sirens and algae motif glass bodied near tear dropped shaped Cire Perdue Perfume Bottle under the bronze sympathetically designed cap, may have peaked the interest of just one bidder at its lofty pre-sale estimated price. It sold for about 90% of the low estimate (Est: JPY28,000,000 – JPY40,000,000) for a hammer price of JPY25,000,000 and a total price of JPY28,750,000.
 The premium inclusive total is about $370,000 at an exchange rate (used throughout this article to estimate the dollar cost) of 77.7 yen to the dollar. A world record price for a Rene Lalique Perfume Bottle at Auction, and likely the world record price for any perfume bottle at auction regardless of manufacturer.
Next high seller was the extremely rare 1912 production bottle Six Danseuses selling as Lot 40. The great bottle featured a design of three pairs of dancing nudes intertwined with a trailing garland, the body of the bottle reminiscent of the shape of many of the Lalique Inkwells. The brown stained bottle, against an estimate of JPY3,000,000 – JPY5,000,000 made a hammer price of JPY2,700,000, and a premium inclusive JPY3,105,000 or about $40,000.
Again, the hammer being 90% of the low estimate, this may have been another one trick pony *** but it looked to this writer like a condition dependent fair deal for the new owner.
 Third high seller was Lot 42, the tiara stoppered 1919 model Bouchon Fleurs De Pommier, which hit a hammer of JPY2,000,000 against an estimate of JPY1,000,000 – JPY1,500,000. The premium inclusive total of JPY2,300,000 represented about $30,000, exceeding the high estimate.
Fourth best seller was Lot 44, the Bouchon Mures Perfume Bottle with a black glass tiara stopper, also known as the Blackberry Perfume Bottle.
This clean looking example made JPY1,700,000 compared to a pre-sale estimate of JPY1,500,000 – JPY2,500,000 and its all inclusive total price of JPY1,955,000/$25,000
 Lot 36, the Lezards Perfume Bottle also exceeded the high estimate, making a hammer of JPY1,600,000 against an estimate of JPY800,000 – JPY1,300,000. The premium inclusive total of JPY1,840,000/$23,500 made this the fifth high selling bottle in the sale.
And of course, to access the extensive information at RLalique.com about the great R.Lalique Flacons, go to the Lalique Perfume Bottles section of the Rene Lalique Bio.
We will leave you all with the words of George Eliot ****, which echo the feelings of so many Lalique Sellers in the current ebullient market: “Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
** Est-Ouest is East-West in French. In Japanese it’s Est-Ouest!
*** One trick pony is an American expression from the early 1900’s describing an animal at one of the many small traveling circuses around the country that could only perform one trick. The expression was later made more famous by Paul Simon as the title of his 1980 movie and song of the same name. Call our use a bit of literary license.
**** George Eliot is the pen name for the 19th century English writer Mary Ann Evans. She published her works under a male nom de plume feeling her writing would be taken more seriously. Her seminal novel Middlemarch is considered by many to be one of the greatest works in all of English literature.
Tags: R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, Rene Lalique Perfume Bottles - R Lalique Perfumes
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Rene Lalique Vase World Records Fall: R.Lalique Cire Perdue Vase Makes $555,000
September 15th, 2012
 Named for the wooden castle built by a son of William the Conqueror near the Tyne River in 1080, the British City of Novum Castellum, (now Newcastle upon Tyne) is rich in history, having seen everyone from the likes of William Wallace (courtesy of King Edward I) to William the Lion (who was imprisoned there in the late 1100’s). Newcastle thrived in the late 1500’s as a coal production center. Later, in the first half of the 1600’s, about a third of the residents were killed by the plague, and even King Charles spent some time in prison there in the mid 1600’s as a guest of the Scots. But by the late 1700’s, it was a great printing center, and also a producer of flint glass. Closer to our time, the first art gallery opened in Newcastle in 1904, a gallery that still exists today.
And it is in this formerly walled city, the former northern fortress of England during the middle ages battles with the Scots, that saw 3 likely auction sale records set on September 11th, courtesy of a diminutive 16 centimeters tall R. Lalique Cire Perdue Glass Vase found in a box in a house during a routine evaluation of the estate of a deceased individual. The 1922 vase featured a design of two voluptuous winged women with outstretched arms in relief on the exterior.
 Normally, we think of R. Lalique Cire Perdues as one-of-a-kind creations, because due to the method of manufacture, the mold is broken and cannot be re-used. However, an original artistic model can be used to make another mold, and while another vase made this way starting with the same model will not be identical, it can be real close. For the Rene Lalique Vase Deux Figures Femmes Ailees, there were 4 such vases recorded as having been made of the same design. And the one of current interest was the first, having been marked on the underside “1/4” (one of four) in addition to “415-22” (the mold number and the year 1922) along with the typical wheel cut R. Lalique signature.
The appearance of the vase generated worldwide interest, having been appropriately cataloged by the auction house, and having been listed well in advance of the sale in the Worldwide Rene Lalique Auction pages at RLalique.com. The auction house, which wiped away the green ring evidence on the interior that the vase had been used to hold flowers (heaven forefend on both counts :), and reported that the vase was in generally very good condition save minor nicks, properly put a conservative sales estimate of £20,000 to £30,000 on the vase, an estimate which would have to be rounded by the addition of another zero to match the roughly tenfold final price :).
 Worldwide bidding interest, a packed house and full U.k. and international telephone lines saw extended bidding lasting several minutes leading to a final bid price of £280,000, which along with the buyers premium of 19.5% or £54,600, made the total sales price £334,600 or about $555,000 US dollars figuring an exchange rate in actual practice of about 1.66 British Pounds per Dollar for the American buyer.
The likely records are as follows: For the locals, according to the auction house, this vase represents the highest price paid at auction for a decorative art object in the northeast of England this century. For the R.Lalique enthusiasts, this is likely not only the highest price ever paid at auction for any Lalique Cire Perdue Vase, but also the highest price paid at auction for any Rene Lalique Vase.
Our take on the price is simple. The market for R. Lalique, especially but not only for high-end vases is hot. For Lalique’s Cire Perdue, it has also been very strong. Also, we have seen from experience that most Cire Perdues that appear at auction have significant condition issues. This vase reportedly did not. And not much Cire Perdue appears with nude women, which are an ever-popular decorative motif from the period, making this vase extremely desirable on all fronts in the current market.
Buyers apparently looked past the fact that other Cire Perdue vases of this same design exist, and grabbed at the opportunity when it presented itself. Think about R. Lalique Cire Perdue this way: in any given year there are limited chances to buy R. Lalique Cire Perdue Vases at auction, usually a few at most. If you want to obtain Cire Perdue vases, you have to go after what appears. In a sense, you do not choose the Cire Perdue, but by its appearance it chooses you. In a rising market, Cire Perdues usually lead the way, and this week in this market was no exception. Add to that the condition of this example, the design, and the good job done by the auction house, and you have on many levels a Cire Perdue Trifecta and another great day for the great Rene Lalique.
For additional information on Lalique Cire Perdues, check out the Lalique Cire Perdue section of the R. Lalique Bio at RLalique.com.
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Rene Lalique Poissons Vase in Blue Glass Leads R.Lalique Prices As Records Fall At Christie’s Lalique Sale
June 1st, 2012
“Close but no cigar” is an American expression that likely originated at carnivals where cigars were given away as prizes at the various games of chance. Some early slot machines also awarded cigars to winners and may have contributed to the spread of this expression
 Well, at Christie’s South Kensington’s Semi-Annual Lalique Sale, the high seller was Lot 143, a nice looking electric blue glass R. Lalique Poissons Vase. Against an estimate of £30,000 to £50,000 or about $48,000 to $80,000 (at the estimated 1.6 U.S. dollars to a British pound used throughout this article), the vase made £65,000/$104,000, and with the buyers premium, an all-in total of £79,250/$126,800.
A record price at auction for a Lalique Poissons Vase! A record price at auction for a Lalique blue glass vase! But the total price (which does not include possible other charges) was just shy of what they might call in the American Southwest, the Big Enchilada; the record high price at auction for a colored glass Lalique production vase. Not quite the turkey** we were hoping but a great Rene Lalique result nonetheless.
 This is of course only minor consolation for the buyer who if rumor is correct, hailed from across the channel, and may therefore be responsible for as much as $10,000 to $13,000 or so of added charges related to either VAT or Import Duties or both, which when combined with the reported result, would make for a record payment if not a record price:). Basically, send the cigar ….. and the turkey.
Notably, two other R. Lalique Poissons Vases were offered up as Lots 124 and 142, with the prior, an amber glass example making all-in (as are all further prices in this article unless stated otherwise) £32,450/$51,920, and the later cased red glass example hitting a bit more at £34,850/$55,760. Though less than half the high selling Poissons Vase price, these represented the 3rd and 4th high selling lots in the auction. Nothing fishy here. Notably the result for Lot 142 was roughly equal to the record price at auction for a Red Poissons Vase achieved just last month.
 2nd high seller was another colored glass vase, Lot 141, a Perruches Vase in amber glass that sold for £36,050/$57,680.
And rounding out the top five was a nice looking press molded opalescent glass Bacchantes Vase selling as Lot 125 for £30,000/$48,000.
Some lots (among others) which seemed to make seriously strong and likely record prices include Lot 140, the cased opalescent Perruches Vase at £30,000/$48,000, the cased opalescent Alicante Vase Lot 126 at £25,000/$40,000, and the Muguet Bowl in opalescent glass as Lot 32 for £6,875/$11,000.
 All in all, for Christie’s a sale total of £591,050/$945,580 for 105 sold lots or an average of about £5,629/9,006 of which the R. Lalique glass was 90 lots making £564,524/$903,210 or an average for each Rene Lalique item of about £6,272/$10,036. See all the results on the Christie’s website.
If you are interested in more information about Lalique Auctions visit the Rene Lalique Biography Lalique Auctions section from which you can access all the great auction resources here at the Worldwide Gathering Place for Everything R.Lalique!
** Turkey: In American bowling three strikes in a row were called a “triple”. But around the turn of 20th Century, at a time when the game was more difficult, a tradition arose where a player making three strikes in row on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day would get a live turkey as a prize. Today, no live turkey, but the appellation has stuck and is now colloquially used to describe almost any three successes in row, bowling or otherwise.
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Rene Lalique Perfume Bottle Jasmin For Isabey: Rare R.Lalique Bottle Makes $100,000 In Paris – Another Great Lalique Sale!
May 12th, 2012
$100,000 for an R. Lalique Perfume Bottle! How many times have you heard that?
 On March 26th, at the Paris auction house of Olivier Coutau-Bégarie, on offer were about a dozen R.Lalique Perfume Bottles and Boxes. It was a nice selection of perfume bottles and included Le Jade for Roger & Gallet in the well known jade green glass, Fleurs D’Amour, Narkiss and Cigalia for the same perfumer, a nice black Ambre D’Orsay Perfume Bottle, also a clear Ambre bottle, the bottle Camelias, the bottle Le Lys, the perfume bottle Fleurs De France, and the bottle Violette also for D’Orsay, Marjolaine for D’Heraud, Bouquet de Faune for Guerlain, the perfume tester La Renommee again for D’Orsay, and to take the D’Orsay cake, the rare and wonderful Grace Perfume Bottle in original box, which made €17,000 hammer plus 23% buyers charges**, or a total of €20,910 or about $28,000 at the approximate exchange rate of 1.3325 on that day. On most R.Lalique Perfume Bottle days, the great Grace would carry the day in the high price department.
 But on this day, Coutau-Bégarie had one more bottle up their sleeve. Lot 138, estimated below the Grace at €10,000 – €15,000 was a 8.5 centimeters tall soft triangular shaped bottle on low oval base, the bottle ingrained with a light almost ribbed design, topped by a pearl shaped stopper with a contrasting swirl motif on each side. This bottle, previously known to have been produced experimentally but not commercially, is shown in the R. Lalique Catalogue Raisonne on Page 947 under the name Striures (striations) in the section for perfume bottles that may have been produced, but for unknown perfume companies. As we now know from the appearance of this Lot 138, the bottle was used for the perfumer Isabey’s Jasmin scent.
 Isabey was founded in 1924, and the design of this bottle is from 1925. The company was named for an early 19th century artist. Isabey was owned (or financed) by Baron Henri James de Rothschild who was married to Mathilde Sophie Henriette von Weissweiller. Mathilde died at the age of 54 in 1926, while Henri (who was a playwright under the name Andre Pascal) lived thru the end of World War II and died in 1947 at the age of 75. Isabey was acquired in 1941 by Marcel Guerlain.
The rare Jasmin Perfume Bottle with its original box and label crushed the pre-sale estimate making a hammer price of €61,000 and with the 23% listed in the catalogue for buyer’s expenses**, made a total of about €75,000 or approximately $100,000 based on the day’s exchange rate. In a well-stocked sale of around 250 lots, it accounted for 1/3 of the sale total and was obviously the high seller of what was another great day for the great Rene Lalique and his wonderful R.Lalique glass.
If you want to know more about perfume bottles and Rene Lalique, head straight to the R.Lalique Perfume Bottles section of the Lalique Bio here at RLalique.com, where you’ll find information and links to all the resources about Lalique’s great perfume bottles here at THE Worldwide Gathering Place for R.Lalique collectors.
** The buyers charge of 23% in addition to the hammer price) is an estimate.
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Lalique Poissons Vase in Red Rene Lalique Glass Makes Another R. Lalique Record Price At Auction
April 24th, 2012
 Rene Lalique items continue to get strong prices throughout the world at auction, a good-looking Red Poissons Vase on April 4th in Paris being no exception. Aguttes auction house offered a nice selection of around 15 R. Lalique items at their sale of 20th Century Decorative Arts that day, with the high seller being a Console Table made by Charles Bernel from drawings by Rene Lalique for the Lalique Pavilion at the 1925 Art Deco Exposition In Paris. The rectangular marble table with carved supports made just over €50,000 all in.
 But it’s the next high seller, at €41,628 all-in against a pre-sale estimate of €16,000 – €18,000 that is most interesting in terms of the current market. That price was paid for Lot 67, the patinated red glass Lalique Vase covered with fish. The price for the Poissons Vase translates into about $55,000 which is almost certainly a record price for a Red Poissons at auction. The Lalique signature shown here was inscribed on the vase.
 Third high seller in this same sale was a great looking rare candelabra pair in the model Trois Branches Raisins, selling for €31,627 all-in.
The sale of the good looking R. Lalique Poissons Vase makes yet another mark on the trail of higher and higher prices. We’ve written previously about the demand and pricing for Rene Lalique glass when Lalique buyers see red, but this price strength, fueled by worldwide bidding interest at auctions, is evident across much of the collecting field. Once again, another great result and a great day for the great Rene Lalique.
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R.Lalique Car Mascot Collection Sells: Lalique Mascots Are Highest Priced Rene Lalique Auction Lot Year To Date!
March 15th, 2012
 A complete collection of the 30 Lalique Mascots *** sold at RM Auctions on March 10th for $700,000 plus a buyer’s premium of 15% or $105,000 for a total sale price for the great Lalique Glass Collection of $805,000. In addition to the mascots, Lot 111 at the auction also included two custom made cabinets specially configured to display the collection. The lot was offered without reserve as part of the regular Amelia Island Florida collector cars auction put on by RM Auctions.
The appearance at auction and the history of this particular Lalique Collection are discussed in a previous news article at Lalique Mascots!
 At an auction of over 100 high end collector cars, Rene Lalique managed to outsell all but 8 of the other lots in the auction, including squeaking by the 10th highest seller, Lot 168, a great looking Duesenberg Model J Convertible Berline by LeBaron with a storied and detailed provenance dating back to its original owner. It was truly a “Doozie” **** and it made just $2000 less than the Lalique, coming all-in at $803,000.
The stunning wrap up: What Rene Lalique created in glass as artful accessories, have now become more valuable than many of the very autos that his mascots were intended to accessorize! 🙂
You can find links to all of the mascot resources here at THE Worldwide Gathering Place for R.Lalique Enthusiasts by visiting the Lalique Car Mascots section of the Rene Lalique Biography.
*** 30 mascots is considered a complete collection. See the linked article above, as well as the linked Mascot section of the Rene Lalique Bio for details.
**** “It’s a doozie!” is a roughly 100 year old expression of debated origin. However, after the appearance of the Duesenberg Automobiles, it’s use and meaning to designate anything remarkable, one of kind, or the unusual, was cemented into the American lexicon as the phrase became associated with the great motorcars. Today it’s sometimes spelled Duesy, Doosy and Doozy in addition to the spelling we use here.
Photos: Michael Furman courtesy of RM Auctions
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Lalique Car Mascots: Complete R. Lalique Mascot Collection At Auction March 10th!
February 23rd, 2012
Rene Lalique Car Mascots are among the glass maker’s most sought after artful objects.
 It all started in 1925 with several mascots including the R. Lalique Cinq Chevaux Car Mascot, a mascot you can read a little bit about in the linked Blog article, and it ended just 6 years later as the spreading global depression changed the buying habits of both decorative glass and automobile buyers.
Lalique mascot collectors today that are attempting to assemble a complete collection, generally try to acquire 30 items, to include the Naiade paperweight along with the 29 objects that were marketed as car mascots. Note that some of those 29 objects were dual marketed as paperweights.
 And there actually is a 31st Lalique Car Mascot, the mascot Levrier-1, believed to have been made as a non-commercial model for Prince George, the younger brother to Prince Edward (later King Edward VIII, and Prince Albert (later King George VI). This mascot is extremely hard to find.
In French, Lalique was selling Bouchons De Radiateur; radiator caps. Today they are referred to not just as Car Mascots, Bouchons De Radiateur, and Radiator Caps, but also Mascots, Mascottes, Hood Ornaments, and Figureheads.
A brief history of R. Lalique Car Mascots appears in the Biography of Rene Lalique here at RLalique.com, where you’ll also find useful links to all the Car Mascot resources and information on the website.
 The R. Lalique collector market is only a part of the demand for these great art glass mascots. Car collectors comprise a huge part of the market, car mascot collectors are also a big part of the demand, and to a lesser extent there is museum interest as well.
As is true in several other collecting areas (such as perfume bottles and opalescent art glass to name a couple), if you are a collector of Hood Ornaments, the most sought after are the ones from the great Rene Lalique.
 Complete R. Lalique Mascot collections rarely appear at auction.
There are only two in recent memory, one of which was part of the amazing Gerald Pulver R. Lalique collection. Before he passed away. Gerry lived in Key Biscayne Florida and at one time may have had the greatest collection of R. Lalique in the world. He was also a great guy and did a couple of great (unsung) things for the whole collecting field. A complete set picked from Gerry’s mascots was offered by Bonhams on May 1st, 2004 at their sale in Brookline Massachusetts along with additional lots of individual mascots from his deep collection. The catalog from that auction is available in the Lalique Library. It can be found in the Library section on modern auction catalogues that partially contain R. Lalique. It has photographs of the entire collection as well as all of the individual lots and the sales results. The catalog stock number is 657 and we only have two left to sell.
The other complete collection, and the one we are most interested in, appeared at RM Auctions in September 2000.
It was said to be one of two complete collections owned by Marvin Tamaroff, and it sold at that auction for $550,000.
 We are reliably informed that the collection coming up for auction on March 10th at RM Auctions in Florida is that same collection.
The pre-sale estimate is $800,000 – $1,200,000 but the collection is offered with NO RESERVE!
The collection on offer is currently owned by Ele Chesny.
She is known throughout the antique auto world as one of the great car collectors, and she may be the foremost female collector in the field.
Without reserve and therefore definitely selling, it should be an interesting and exciting sale day for the works of Rene Lalique.
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R. Lalique Courges Vase in Red Lalique Glass Makes A World Record Price In Detroit
February 15th, 2012
 Rene Lalique Red Vases do extremely well at auction, as evidenced by a string of world record prices for different R.Lalique Vase models in red glass over the last few years. Recent examples include a red glass Perruches Vase which sold at Bonhams in London on November 16th, 2011 as Lot 157 in their sale, “Rene Lalique: Designs in Glass” for £42,050 (about $68,000 at that time), as well as the red glass Rene Lalique Hirondelles Vase which famously made a world record auction hammer price for any R. Lalique colored glass production vase in November of 2010. And also on December 9th, 2010 a Red Ronces Vase selling as Lot 56 made £10,000 British Pounds at Christie’s South Kensington (about $16,000 at the time); also a likely world record price at auction for the Ronces Vase model.
And while red glass vases have done extremely well as of late, the world records have not been limited to either red or rare, as shown by the opalescent glass Rennes Vase, which made a world record price for that model selling as Lot 10-875 on November 17th, 2011 at Christies South Kensington in London for £18,750 or about $30,000 at the time! A person (and a hat-tip to our confederate “Pol” from south of the equator for being that person and bringing this to our attention) could make the case that in some respects, the relatively common Rennes Vase making that kind of price is more impressive than any of the red stuff.
 But be that as it may, the numbers are much bigger when bidders see red; red and rare being an explosive combination in the price department. February 11th, 2012 in Detroit at Dumouchelles auction house was no exception. For on that day, an R. Lalique Courges Vase appeared in Lalique’s red glass. Introduced in 1914, the Courges Vase is one of Lalique’s earliest production vases. Red Courges are rarely seen at auction, the last time being the Red Courges at Davidson Auctions in Australia on August 8th, 2008 where it sold for AUD41,940 all-in against a pre-sale estimate of AUD9,000 to AUD11,000. The final price was about $38,000 U.S. at that time.
And note that there is an active private market as well for all models and colors of R. Lalique, the red Courges being no exception (well activity is limited a bit by rarity:). We placed a red Courges Vase through the Lalique Wanted section here at RLalique.com near the end of 2011 in a transaction between clients of two different countries. That placement came after over 2 years of searching for one of course.
The Courges is one of Rene Lalique earliest vases, with both the shape of the vase and the design on the vase being in harmony with the vase’s gourd motif.
 Another great thing about the Courges is that it many times has multiple interesting signatures, owing to the manufacturing techniques of the period; the Dumouchelles example being no exception as shown in the accompanying photo. Other Courges multi-signature examples can be seen in the linked article on authentic R Lalique Signatures here on the website.
The auction house reports that there were at least 8 serious bidders, with a handful still bidding near the end.
 We talked to some of those interested parties and they all had great things to say about the professionalism and excellent service they found at Dumouchelles, something we at World Headquarters have also experienced in our contacts with everyone at Dumouchelles. The active bidders included collectors and dealers from continental Europe, England, the U.S. and at least one other continent. Hopefully, several of the bidders will have remembered to tell Dumouchelles what auction houses around the world have been hearing for years on their R.Lalique items; “I saw it at RLalique.com!”.
One final note from the auction house: On Wednesdays, Dumouchelles holds open consignment days, where people just walk-in with what they have to offer, and the auction house never knows what might appear. Well, the great Red Courges Vase walked-in on a Wednesday (and flew out on a Saturday). Go figure.
Against a pre-sale estimate of $3000 to $6000, the final price was $47,500, and with the buyers 20% premium, $57,000. The world record for this vase model, and a great R. Lalique result.
How rare is the red glass Courges Vase? Well, after leaving the factory and the retailers back in the day, it’s unlikely that two of these vases have ever been together in the same room again …… until recently. The accompanying Two Red Courges photo shows a pair of the great and rare vases sitting together on a window shelf. They are part of an extensive current collection of R. Lalique items. One of the two pictured Courges is the vase acquired thru the Lalique Wanted section here at RLalique.com, having appeared quite literally out the blue (out of the red?) in an email a while back that began; “I am in possession of a vase that appears in your Wanted Section …. “. True enough the writer was.
And yes we know; several of the underbidders this week on the Dumouchelles Red Courges are seeing double red themselves after viewing this great double Courges photo!
A red hot market for the great Rene Lalique.
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Lalique Jewelry: Unique R. Lalique Art Nouveau Jewels Sparkle At Sotheby’s New York
February 11th, 2012
Rene Lalique Jewelry hit another auction sales home run at Sotheby’s Important Jewels auction on February 9th, 2012 in New York City. Tucked into the middle of the two session sale were four R. Lalique jewelry items, all thought to be unique pieces from the period before 1905.
 In summary, the four lots were estimated in total at $255,000 to $340,000. Against this estimate, the four made $652,000, or over 2 and 1/2 times the low estimate and nearly double the high one.
Lot 253 was the high seller of the group; a wonderful combination Lalique pendant-brooch, with a small watch where you might typically find the trademark suspended natural pearl.
Two coherent pieces, finished well both back and front, they made $188,500 against and estimated $75,000 – $100,000.
2nd high seller and a personal favorite of this writer was Lot 252, a typically designed and presented Lalique Pendant with an off-white enamel face, blue enamel poppies, yellow-green enamel leaves, and sporting a gray-lavender drop pearl. This wonderful Lalique Jewel is shown in a drawing on Page 274 in the seminal work by Sigrid Barten titled Rene Lalique Schmuck und Objects d’art which is available in the Lalique Books section here at RLalique.com.
This amazing piece of R. Lalique artwork made $176,500 against an estimate of $60,000 – $80,000.
 3rd place went to the Dragonfly Pendant-Brooch selling as Lot 254 and featuring two facing dragonflies done up in blue, teal, white, and plate blue plique-a-jour enamel, and having a central oval cabochon opal, white opal spindleberries, and stems enameled in white.
The missing pin did not deter bidders from pushing it up to $170,500 against an estimate of $60,000 – $80,000.
4th in price, was Lot 255, a two part offering consisting of a matching Lalique Brooch and Lalique Clasp. Each piece had a central amethyst, each featured white, cream and pink enamel work, each had a well worked mirrored gold patterned back, and the Brooch additionally showed clusters of iridescent glass raspberries.
The nice matched pair made $116,500 again the thrice low $60,000 – $80,000 estimate.
The nearly 400 lot sale at the company’s York Avenue salesrooms totaled just over $10,000,000, with the Lalique Jewelry comprising but 1% of the offered items, yet making over 6% of the sale total.
Once again, the market continues strong as more buyers recognize not just the attractiveness of the works of Rene Lalique, but also Lalique’s importance in art history and the art nouveau and art deco movements. You can find out more about Rene Lalique Jewelry and entire amazing story about the life of the great man by visiting the Rene Lalique Biography, here at RLalique.com: THE Worldwide Gathering Place For Rene Lalique Collectors and R. Lalique Enthusiasts!
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Rene Lalique Pendant Owned By Elizabeth Taylor Sells For $566,500: A Great R. Lalique Sales Result!
December 18th, 2011
 Richard Burton, perhaps the most well known among the 8 husbands and other loves of Elizabeth Taylor, was apparently the most prolific jewelry buyer in her life. Burton gave Taylor some incredible pieces of jewelry including for example a pearl (NOT the drop pearl with this pendant) from the 1500’s once owned by England’s Mary Tudor and for which Burton paid $37,000 in 1969. This pearl was found in the Gulf of Panama in the early 16th century at a time when Spain was exploring and colonizing the new world. At the time, it was the biggest pearl known, being 56 carats!
It was taken to Spain by Don Pedro de Temez, the administrator of the Panama Colony and presented to King Philip. Philip gave the “La Peregrina Pearl” (la peregrina means the pilgrim or the wanderer) to Queen Mary as a wedding present when they got married in 1544, and it appears in a portrait from that same year of Queen Mary The 1st, painted by Hans Eworth; a painting that Taylor and Burton helped the National Portrait Gallery in Great Britain to acquire in 1972. This pearl reverted to King Philip on Mary’s death, and was part of the Crown Jewels of Spain for around 250 years. Several portraits exist of royalty wearing this pearl including portraits painted by Diego Velazquez. In 1808 Napoleon Bonaparte put his brother Joseph (Giuseppe) on the Spanish throne, but Joe’s time as King of Spain lasted just 5 years due to some setbacks for the Bonaparte crowd and the Spanish not taking too kindly to an imposed French King. Being a first class guy, Joe grabbed the pearl (and a lot of other jewelry) on the way out the door as he fled.
Joseph ended up living in the United States for roughly 15 years from about 1817 to 1832, mainly in New Jersey, where among his other activities he had two American daughters by a mistress. When Joseph died he left the pearl to his nephew Charles Louis Bonaparte, who later was Emperor Bonaparte. Charles sold the pearl while exiled in England to James Hamilton, who would become the Duke of Abercorn (an interesting guy that fathered 14 kids by one wife and who among other things was the Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland!). The pearl stayed in his family until 1969 when it was auctioned at Sotheby’s to Burton, who gave it to Taylor as a present! Can you imagine a better or longer provenance? The pearl sold this week for near $12 million! You can watch a video of the sale of this pearl (and a couple other lots from this auction) at the Christie’s website here.
But the Richard Burton gift of interest to us is the blue and green glass R. Lalique Pendant *** featuring a medusa head in a frame of three gold serpents with blue and green enamel and having the Lalique trademark single suspended pearl. A much smaller pearl than the one previously discussed. 🙂
Why three snakes? They’re symbolic of the fact that Medusa was one of three Gorgons!
This wonderful Lalique Pendant appeared in New York in the sale of the Collection of Elizabeth Taylor Jewelry as Lot Number 281 estimated at $40,000 – $60,000; a not so hidden gem amongst the raft of big gemstone offerings. When the hammer came down, the total sale price including buyers premium was an over 10 times estimate $566,500.
A pearl of a result for a great example of the art that is Rene Lalique jewelry.
If you want to learn more about the great jewelry of Lalique, you’ll find insightful reporting and links to the extensive information at RLalique.com in the R.Lalique Biography section for Lalique’s Jewelry!
*** Christie’s has identified this great object as a brooch. The form of this object appears to us to more closely resemble an R. Lalique pendant than a brooch. An inspection of whatever pin is on the back of the piece, which we have not seen, would settle the question from among the various possibilities.
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R. Lalique Fox Mascot Appears in Hunt Country And Lalique Buyers Chase It To A Rene Lalique Car Mascot Record Price!
November 28th, 2011
Likely a world record price for any Lalique Car Mascot at auction was achieved on Saturday November 26th in Chester Springs Pennsylvania, smack in the middle of old Hunt Country west of Philadelphia. The unsigned R. Lalique Renard Hood Ornament appeared at Wiederseim Associates Inc. Auction House, run by Ted And Jill Wiederseim, just a stone’s throw *** from Rhoads Auction House which sold the great Red Hirondelles Vase in November 2010.
Because the rare mascot was not signed and was amongst hundreds of porcelain and other decorative foxes all out of the same house, it was understandably not catalogued as a period R. Lalique glass mascot. It was sold as part of Lot 515 shown above, with four other decorative foxes all for the single estimate of $100-$150. An alert staffer here at RLalique.com spotted the above photo amongst the thousands of auction reports that pour into World Headquarters on a daily basis, and recognized the rare R.Lalique Renard (the French word for fox), likely the rarest and most valuable of all commercial Rene Lalique Car Mascot models. We promptly informed the auction house of the likely amazing treasure they had hidden in plain sight, and placed the great fox in the Worldwide Auction Listings here on the website. This triggered immediate inquiries into Wiederseim from all over the world.
Much was made in certain circles about the lack of signature on the great fox. But as readers of this website are aware, R. Lalique pieces are not authenticated by their signatures. They speak for themselves.
The certain circles we refer to are a couple of R Lalique dealers one of which has disparaged the mascot in what we consider outrageous circumstances, while the other dealer was apparently just completely making stuff up. Both circulated information to the effect that this great item was possibly a “factory reject” (how many of you have seen an R Lalique “factory reject”, or heard that term used in reference to R. Lalique?), and both have also inferred at times that it might not be a genuine R. Lalique car mascot.
Strangely, while knocking down the piece (and maybe by happenstance knocking down the number of bidders and the price the remaining bidders might be willing to pay :), both dealers reserved phone lines for phone bidding!!!! You cannot make this stuff up.
One of these dealers, let’s call this person “Hound Dog”, went so far as to post commentary on the internet even the day after the sale, questioning if the piece was even genuine, disparaging the condition and the price paid, and suggesting it might be a modern copy of some sort. This again, was after reserving a phone bid line and being on the phone with the auction house during the bidding.
The second dealer, let’s call this person “Humpty Dumpty” has seemingly made up the fact that the mascot was broken apart in a significant way in at least a couple of places and glued back together! And he sent emails out to this effect prior to the auction, along with a scandalous theory of a Lalique factory worker picking the parts of the rejected piece out of a trash bin at the factory and taking them home to put them back together again as best he could! Friends, it’s story time in Fantasy Land.
 Oh, Humpty Dumpty also stated as fact in his emails that all R. Lalique pieces were signed before leaving the factory. This is obviously incorrect, and we would refer Mr. Dumpty and all readers to the article here at RLalique.com discussing Authentic Rene Lalique Signatures and to the page on Authentic R Lalique Signatures as well for more information on this point.
So while the yelping from the sideshow was a bit of a distraction leading up to the sale, it did nothing to curb the enthusiasm of bidders from all over the world as many collectors lined up to try and acquire this seldom seen mascot.
The auction house, having only two international capable phones, had to acquire additional phones for the worldwide bidding scramble that ensued upon our listing the fox here! U.S. phone bidders were also heard from, as were a couple of bidders in the room during the sale, including one well known long time dealer who personally inspected the fox before wading into the bidding.
In the end, with the price starting at $25,000 and moving up quickly from there, two phone bidders both from the UK, left the competition behind, reportedly at around $140,000 to $150,000, and took it up to $175,000 ($204,750 with the buyers premium) before the hammer came down on this historic sale of the unassuming, unsigned, but no longer unsung Lalique Hood Ornament.
If you are wondering how the Renard Mascot came to Wiederseim, here is the short version:
 Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours came from France to the United States in 1800 with his two sons Victor Marie du Pont and Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. Eleuthère started up a little company called E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (most people today just say DuPont). At the start, they made gunpowder. No need to discuss the entire history of the duPont Family in America, but several generations removed from the auspicious start as gunpowder makers, a descendant, John Eleuthère duPont was born in 1938 in Philadelphia. He was the son of William duPont Jr., who among other things, imported from England the famous racehorse The Satrap, winner of the Chesham Stakes at Ascot, the Richmond Stakes at Goodwood, and at Newmarket both the Chesterfield Stakes and the July Stakes. In 1996, John tragically shot and killed (yes, using gunpowder) a U.S. Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler named Dave Shultz who was living on his Foxcatcher Farm estate, a property John had taken over after the death of his mother and which he had named Foxcatcher after his father’s famous horse racing stable. John was found guilty of murder in 1997 and died in prison in 2010.
John collected decorative foxes, lots of them. And after his death, and after the house had been swept through by a major New York City based auction house to have their pick of the most valuable items (oops, they missed something), a slew of decorative foxes along with a ton of other stuff were turned over to Wiederseim for auction. Among the relatively low value foxes was the great R. Lalique Renard Car Mascot about which we write today; missed once but not twice, now with the duPont provenance, and headed off to the UK with a world record price tag.
For more information about Lalique’s car mascots including links to all mascot resources on the website, visit the Rene Lalique Biography Car Mascots section here at THE address on the web for everything R. Lalique.
***Stone’s Throw – slang for a short distance (heck, how far can you throw a stone?)
Tags: R Lalique Rene Lalique Auctions News and Results, Rene Lalique Car Mascots and R Lalique Car Mascots
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