The 9in (22cm) table centrepiece modelled as two pairs of dancers (model no 434) was one of two Age of Jazz figures consigned for the March 21 sale from a UK private collection. The estimate was £3000-5000.
There are five figures from this 1930 series that evoked the work of the French ceramicist Robert Lallement and also the well-known series of jazz musician figures made for the Parisian retailer Robj.
“Listening to the jazz music on the wireless after dinner inspired Clarice Cliff’s new dancing figures,” The Daily Sketch reported at the time.
The previous lot, a figure (no 436) modelled as a piano player and a banjo player, had some restoration but sold at £9500 to a different buyer.
The price of £15,000 (£18,750 including 25% buyer’s premium) is the highest bid at auction in this once-booming collecting field for some years (the record remains a May Avenue pattern charger sold for £34,000 at former market cheerleader Christie’s South Kensington in 2003).
It is also thought to be a saleroom record for an Age of Jazz figure – bettering a figure of a single dancing couple sold at £13,500 as part of the Barry Jones collection at CSK in 2000. Another version of model 434 (one with some imperfections) took £9500 at CSK in May 1999.
