RLalique.com was found by Yahoo this weekend! Amazingly, we are listed in their search for rlalique as Number 1!!!!! AND, we are in the top ten for the other typical searches such as r lalique, or r. lalique. Totally great! Hope our good fortune continues in the “search” department. It might be that our vast content overwhelms the efforts of paid search engine consultants and puts us on top. And of course, there is that factor that we talked about previously in regard to our Number 1 ranking with Google’s search engine; see movie poster :). We hope our good fortune continues.
Yahoo Search Joins The Believers! Now we’re No. 1 in your hearts AND No. 1 in your Yahoo search!
September 3rd, 2008
Ebay R Lalique Enfants Vase Listing – bad and GOOD news!
September 3rd, 2008
The great Rene Lalique Enfants Vase that was our first ever Ebay listing (Ebay user I.D. RLaliqueSales), unfortunately did not sell on Ebay, achieving a price of around $4500 but not reaching it’s reserve. But the GOOD news is that it sold privately on Wednesday, the day after the Ebay auction ended. Chalk this up in the “All’s Well That Ends Well” category, as a rare RLalique Vase finds a new home in an up and coming American collection. Also, listing our first item on Ebay got us organized and we made a great About Me Page on Ebay, which looks very similar to our website, AND links back to a GIANT photo of whatever item we might have on Ebay. We are thinking about listing another Ebay item sometime this month, and we’ll alert readers of this Blog if and when we do. In the meantime, thanks for your support, and we hope to see you hanging around the Blog.
Mark Your R Lalique Calendars – 2 Major R Lalique Sales
August 27th, 2008
Two major RLalique sales are on schedule for the Fall. Up first is the semi-annual Christie’s South Kensington Lalique Sale on November 12th. Always sporting a great variety of items produced by the great Rene Lalique, our expectations for this Fall’s rendition are quite high. Rumors are that one highlight item will be a known, but previously un-photographed Cire Perdue shown only as a drawing in the Catalogue Raisonne. 
The following month, on December 13th, Mastro Auctions will present a major RLalique Sale as well, combined with a Perfume Presentations Auction. Hopes are for over a hundred works by Rene Lalique anchored by a large consignment from an American collection assembled over the last 10 to 15 years. More details on these two major RLalique sales will be posted here and in the RLalique At Auction Section as they become available.
July 2009 Update: Mastro has become Legendary Auctions and the links here have been updated to the Legendary Auction website. Later, Legendary Auctions ceased doing business and all links to their site have been deleted.
Rene Lalique Cire Perdue Vase at James D. Julia sells for $60,000
August 27th, 2008
With a crowd that was wall to wall and out the door, Ebay live bidding available, and half dozen phone lines in play, the Rene Lalique 1919 Cire Perdue covered vase Frise Chiens was sold today at James D. Julia auction house in Maine. This one of a kind Cire Perdue, which was the pictured highlight item on our RLalique.com Home Page for the RLalique At Auction Section during the past 10 days, was hammered down for $52,000 plus a minimum buyer’s premium of 15% or $7,800 for a total sale price of $59,800 against a pre sale estimate of $25K to 30K. The buyer’s premium and total sale price may be higher than stated here, depending on the buyer’s payment method. The 5 and 1/2 inch vase showed several small chips to the top rim of the vase and the edge of the cover, as well as a larger chip which removed a “Chien’s” (dog’s) head (see photo below). This vase had previously been shown in the Catalogue Raisonne only by the original Rene Lalique drawing, a photo of it not having been previously available. All things considered, a good price for a one of kind unique work of art by the great Rene Lalique. And we can only hope that the buyer remembered to tell them what is becoming an increasingly familiar phrase at auction houses around the world: “I saw it at RLalique.com!”
For more information, see the Rene Lalique Biography section on Lalique Cire Perdue.
Google Search LOVES RLalique.com
August 26th, 2008
In just the couple short weeks that RLalique.com has been up and running, even Google has taken notice!! This morning, we typed the keyword rlalique in Google, and guess who is the Number ONE Google search result ….. OK, you probably can figure who it is since we are making a big deal about it, but it’s RLaique.com! Yippee! We are also in the top 10 already for what we think are the other typical searches: r. lalique, r lalique, and r.lalique. Unbelievable! Go to Google Search and check it out for yourself. You’ll see us right there at the top of the list. Anyway we are enjoying our new status, since for all we know we can go down to number 100 in a week. And unlike a lot of websites, we don’t pay anyone to work on getting us search rankings. So it’s either what grandma always said about good things happening to good people (OK, probably not that :), or just dumb luck. Hmmmmmmmm…………….
First Ebay R Lalique Listing! Ebay Screen Name RLaliqueSales!
August 23rd, 2008
Tonight (Saturday) at 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time in the U.S., our first Ebay listing will appear. It’s a great Rene Lalique Enfants Vase, Circa 1931. The Enfants is pretty good size, around 27 centimeters tall. Our Ebay User I.D, is RLaliqueSales. We plan to list other great RLalique items on Ebay from time to time. We’ve posted the listing in the RLalique at Auction Section, and here is a direct link to the item number 320290418131 of the Enfants Vase on Ebay. You can also check out our new RLalique.com Ebay About Me Page (well, About US really)!
Great New Feature in the R Lalique For Sale Section
August 21st, 2008
In response to a user suggestion we added a new feature to the For Sale Section today, that allows you to click on any of the thumbnails of the For Sale items, and a new page will open with a large picture of the item. The large photos are high quality photos showing the item in great detail. These larger new photos make it a lot easier to judge the quality of the item, and are much more representative of the piece than the small thumbnails. I can’t identify the user that made the suggestion, but I will say that he lives on the east coast of the U.S., and like me, he definitely married up! Way up! Please keep the comments and suggestions coming.
Rene Lalique Biography Video With Crystal Lalique Executive Gerard Tavenas
August 19th, 2008
Here is a great short Rene Lalique Biography and History video interview with Gerard Tavenas. This is an informative video, mixing historical information about Rene Lalique with current video of modern crystal making today. You can find out more about Rene Lalique on our Rene Lalique Biography Page.
If for any reason the video does not appear, here is a LINK to it.
A Grand Start For RLalique.com
August 19th, 2008
A collector asked me today how the first week of RLalique.com has gone. I told him it’s both hectic and unbelievably great at the same time. We’ve come a long way in a short time, and I’ve been so much busier than I’m used to, I would have guessed we were only up for a few days. Here’s a brief review. We’ve put the site up without fanfare or announcements, and just a few emails to old friends and fellow RLalique collectors. Yet things have gone better than we could ever have expected. First, there have been no serious programming issues with the site. Considering this is the first site we ever developed, that was a bit of a concern as you might imagine. Also, the For Sale Section went great guns the first week, with 16 sales of wonderful Rene Lalique items. We would have thought it would be months before we got to that kind of number. As you might have noticed, the SOLD items were clogging up the For Sale Section, so we made a separate page for the SOLD items and moved them off the For Sale page onto their own “Missed Opportunities” page. Also, the first Library sale was made, and as a result, I got to send my first email from the address Info@rlalique.com. And, we have gotten our RLalique at Auction section going with a good number of upcoming item reports, in spite of the fact that this is the slowest time of year for RLalique to be appearing at auctions. Things should pick up after Labor Day in the US, as auction houses launch their Fall schedules with mid and late September sales, and in France as August turns to September, vacations end, and business there picks up. We’re getting a lot of visitors, emails, and traffic, and I hope that as word spreads, the number of visitors will continue to increase over the coming months. We have gotten great input concerning the site, and have already implemented many suggestions from our fellow RLalique enthusiasts concerning features or bugs. If you didn’t notice, one suggestion we put into place was to link the header photo of the great Wasps Cire Perdue Vase to the Home Page as a quick and large link to get back to the Home Page from any other page on the site. We also linked the entire header of every Blog page to the Home Page as well. Hopefully once the initial burst of activity associated with a new website dissipates, you’ll see a few new features added to the site, and we’ll report on them from time to time here in the Blog to draw your attention to them. If you have any comments, suggestions for improvements, or bug reports, please let us know. We take your input seriously, since our site is devoted to you, the RLalique enthusiast. We know your time is valuable, and we are working hard to make sure that the time you put aside to spend with us is time well spent.
Bonhams and Goodman in Sydney 8-17-2008 Sale Comments on R Lalique Items
August 17th, 2008
Bonhams and Goodman in Sydney, Australia had several moderately priced pieces of RLalique at their Antiques and Interior Sale on August 17th, 2008. The high seller among the RLalique, and an unusual item to boot, was a rare Rene Lalique green opalescent Gui #1 bowl. It made $1464 AUS including the premium against a spot on estimate of $1200 to $1500 AUS. The green opalescent plates and bowls seldom appear at auction, and the coloring obviously raised the price of this bowl compared to the value of the typical opalescent example. The rest of the results can be found at Bonhams website.
UPDATE: March 7, 2010 – Bonhams and Goodmans is no longer in business in Australia, so we adjusted the link to the Bonhams main website.
Bonhams Quail Lodge R Lalique Mascot Sales Results of 8-15-2008
August 16th, 2008
Bonhams Quail Lodge Sale in Carmel on August 15th, held to coincide with the big car show held each year, had several Rene Lalique mascots in it. Here are the results including buyer’s premium:
Faucon $2,633
Sirene opalescent $4680
Chrysis $4,680
Hirondelle $6,728
Tete de Belier $6,728
Tete de Paon $12,285
Vitesse $23,400
Victoire $29,250
Chrysis opalescent did not sell
They also had Eagle’s Head mascot by Persons Majestic Co, which sold for $819. This is the version discussed in the Lalique Copies and Close Calls Section at RLalique.com.
Rene Lalique Cicada Brooch makes $135,000 at Woolley and Wallis July 31st, 2008
August 9th, 2008
A wonderful Rene Lalique Cicada Brooch, along with the original fitted box, circa 1900-1905, sold for a hammer price of 58,000 British Pounds plus a premium of 19.5% and VAT, for a total north of $135,000 U.S. dollars at the Woolly and Wallis’s jewelry sale on July 31st in Salisbury, England. An expensive 2 inch R.Lalique brooch, it well exceed it’s 5000-7000 British Pound estimate after 14 phone bidders competing against strong interest in the room were finished.
R Lalique Red Courges Sells for $42,000 AUS in Australia
August 9th, 2008
On August 8th, a Rene Lalique Red Courges Vase, one of only a few Red Courges to appear in recent years, surfaced at Davidson Auctions in Sydney Australia and on Ebay Live Auctions. The cased, heavy, and richly colored early R Lalique vase had a rim flaw; a bubble that was in between the two layers of glass and was broken thru the top rim. This bubble lit up pretty good when the vase was illuminated on display. It also still had the original Hardy Brothers Retailer Label on the bottom. Hardy Brothers was an Australian retailer of R Lalique, and R. Laiique pieces still retaining their label on the underside appear from time to time. Note that an amazingly rare original Hardy Brothers R. Lalique marketing booklet is for sale at this time in our Library in the section containing Original RLalique Retailer Material. The auction house said the consignor was the original Australian purchaser. The vase made $36,000 plus a 16.5% premium against an estimate of 9,000 to 11,000 AUS. With the slight decline of the Australian dollar off its recent highs against the US dollar, the AUS price is approximately 10% higher than it would be in US Dollars. Despite half dozen phone lines being in play, the vase was purchased in the room in Sydney, against strong runner-up bidding on Ebay Live.
Cleveland Museum of Art Exhibit – Lalique Tiffany, Faberge
August 8th, 2008
The Cleveland Museum of Art is having an Exhibition titled Artistic Luxury: Faberge Tiffany Lalique. The Exhibition will go from October 19, 2008 to January 18, 2008. The Museum just acquired the famous Frogs Vase (Grenouilles Et Nenuphars circa 1912) shown here, which was sold at auction at Christies in New York in December 2006. Here is a link to the information about the exhibition on the Cleveland Museum of Art Website, where you will be able to get further information as it becomes available.
Auction Law and Ethics
August 7th, 2008
The Maine Antique Digest is running a great series on Auction Law and Ethics, written by an attorney who is familiar with auctions and the law. The current series deals with bid rigging and collusion among bidders. As of the launching of our Blog, three articles have appeared, all of which are linked in our Articles of Interest page at RLalique.com. This page can also be accessed from the link in our Navigation Section on any Blog page. We agree with the author that when bidders collude, it is a serious problem for all auction participants, and that all bidders at auctions should be aware of the laws about bid rigging and collusion. We highly recommend these articles to you, and welcome your comments.
