The top lot was the second-most expensive he had sold in those two decades.
A 1930s bottle and case for Présence, designed by Andre Bonnet for the Parisian fashion house Martial et Armand, hammered at $70,000 (£52,150) against an estimate of $20,000-25,000 after a battle involving bidders from four continents. With buyer’s premium, the lot realised $87,500 (£65,150).
Présence was the final scent Martial et Armand would offer. Its Machine Age packaging features a circular fire engine red Bakelite pull handle and cover fashioned like stacked aluminium bars.
“Aluminium, Bakelite, and other plastics had been used previously in other perfume packaging and ornamentation, but not in quite such a dramatic combination,” Leach said.
The 3¼in (8.25cm) example was consigned by a New York resident who inherited it from a US collector who had lived in Paris for 50 years.
Leach said he knew “of only one other of this size and condition in a private collection”.
The second and third most-expensive lots in the May 2 sale hammered for $50,000 (£37,250) apiece. The higher guide of the two, at $12,000-16,000, belonged to a 1920s Czech Art Deco bottle in striking black “onyx” glass with a dauber designed to look like a nude.
It was the handiwork of Heinrich Hoffmann (1875-1939), the Gablonz glassmaker who elevated this perfume bottle to a work of art. The influence of Lalique on Hoffmann is most evident in the bottle’s dauber fashioned as a female nude.
Standing 8¾in (22cm) high, it is unusually large for a perfume bottle, and would probably have been sold empty and taken to a perfumier to be filled. Leach said it was sourced from Brazil. “This model exists in other versions – clear glass or clear coloured glass. This one was unique in that it was black-on-black and fully opaque.”
Baccarat inkwell-form bottle for Alphonse Gravier, $50,000 (£37,250).
Photo courtesy of Ken Leach
The other lot that hammered for $50,000 (£37,250) had a unique and atypical shape. Guided at $10,000-15,000, it dated to 1910 and was made by Baccarat to hold Me Voici (Here I Am) by Alphonse Gravier. Gravier, who sold soaps and perfumes at his Paris boutique, relied on the famed French crystal firm of Baccarat to provide unusual and striking bottles. “Of the 35 scents he released by 1926, 21 are documented to have appeared in Baccarat bottles,” Leach said.
Gravier approved an enamel-decorated inkwell-form bottle for Me Voici. Leach speculates it might represent “a literary image for the writing of expressing one’s feelings for another”.
Its consigner acquired it from a Hollywood estate sale more than 40 years ago. Leach recalls seeing another come for sale in London in 1986.
“I knew about this bottle since I lived in Los Angeles – I had longed to purchase it decades ago. So when I got the call about consignment, it was a bit of a full-circle moment,” said Leach.
