The single-owner collection of glass and sculpture saw a dramatically stronger response than the mixed-owner, mixed subject offering the following day which was held back by some of the weaker areas of the market cited in our introduction.
Notwithstanding, taken together the two events gave the department their biggest grossing event to date coming in at just under £1m hammer.
The European vendor's property saw its strongest demand for sculpture with only six lots left unsold. The vendor's focus on good examples by well-known names chimed in with current buyers' tastes for the best known names such as Chiparus, Preiss, Zach, Lorenzl and le Faguays.
Nothing illustrated this better than the top lot a model of Bruno Zach's Riding Crop. Although this is arguably his best known work it doesn't come up for auction too often and this 2ft 10in (86cm) high version duly doubled estimate at £35,000.
Another well-known model, more Nouveau lethargy than Deco dominatrix, was Night, Maurice Bouval's gilt-bronze bust of Ophelia that provided the morning's second highest price at £20,000.
Although relatively little failed, it was glasswares that saw the bulk of the collection's 28 unsold lots, and this despite judicious estimates that took into account the dramatic price falls since the late 1980s. The white metal mounted 9in (23cm) high Daum vase pictured middle right for example was one of the day's top-sellers. It doubled an estimate that was set at just £3000-4000 but even at £7500 its price was well short of what one might have expected a decade ago.
Like the more routine material offered two weeks later on May 12 buyers with found it much harder to enthuse about the mixed-owner session in the afternoon. The best response was for the sculpture and the art glass, but metalwares, ceramics and furnishings proved particularly sticky and a large collection of Icart prints (a Japanese and American dependant market) was disappointing.
Significantly there was a sunny interval in the ceramics section. The selling rate improved dramatically when the auctioneers offered a 32-lot single-owner collection of Deco figures by Lenci, Essevi, Goldscheider and Royal Dux. These had been acquired in the late 1980s and early '90s and (in a field that is markedly condition sensitive) their lack of damage was a key factor.
Nothing else here matched the £32,000 sale topping Abissina figure that was the collection's highlight with other pieces more or less selling within estimate but there was noticeable demand for the most stylish sculpture pieces that best emboided their era. The Lenci nude reclining on a check mattress shown above for example realised £4500.
Apart from this, the sale yielded the odd individual high flyer like the Carlo Bugatti stained wood, vellum covered and tasselled armchair pictured here. The auctioneers had estimated this at a modest £2000-£3000 and saw it rise to £17,500.
