There was less trade buying than at the Lagerfeld collection – just three lots from the top ten – and less interest from American buyers, although American collectors were listed as the purchasers of a Jean Dunand circular double-top red-lacquered and eggshell occasional table at €125,000 (£86,200) and of Pierre Chareau's mahogany and wrought-iron MB744 desk and armchair at €120,000 (£82,800).
Chareau’s more lavish MB113 rosewood bureau was the sale’s chief casualty, unsold against an estimate of €300,000-400,000. The European trade bid the evening’s top price to secure a Rateau bronze and alabaster table-lamp.
The c.1920, 18in (45.5cm) tall lamp, with an ovoid alabaster shade supported on a bronze base of four stylised Fennec foxes, took a quadruple-estimate €240,000 (£165,500). A second, identical lamp sold to a European collector at €230,000 (£158,600).
A European collector bid €200,000 (£137,900) for a glass, chromed metal and tube-light Aeroplane ceiling lamp by Eileen Gray (1925-28), while a trade bid
of €140,000 (£96,550) secured a five-panel glass and metal screen
by Louis Barillet and Jacques Le Chevallier, 6ft 3in by 8ft 5in (1.90m x 2.57m), with a geometric pattern made up of rectangles of black, white, red and opaque colourless glass.
Top-scoring lamps help Europeans see decorative light
CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).
