"The Danner Memorial"
window, $1,986,000.
NEW YORK CITY - Two sales at Christie's New York on December 8
emphasized a demand and international interest for Twentieth
Century applied arts. Although different in style and approach,
the sales Tiffany: Innovation in American Design and Important
Twentieth Century Decorative Arts offered examples creations by
leading Twentieth Century designers and artists active in the
decorative art field. World auction records were set in the two
sales.
A "Tardieu" chromed metal and lacquer desk by Jacques-Emile
Ruhlmann, executed in 1929 for the Salon des Artistes
Decorateurs, was the star of the sale Important Twentieth Century
Decorative Arts. The desk sold for a solid $1,876,000, not only
setting a world auction record for Ruhlmann but also a record for
any piece of Art Deco furniture ever sold at auction. This record
price is shared with the Edgar Brandt's "L'Oasis" screen that was
sold at Christie's New York during the Masterworks sale on June 8
for exactly the same amount.
A "Laburnum" leaded glass and bronze table lamp, circa 1910,
fetched $501,000.
The afternoon, devoted to Louis Comfort Tiffany, also had its
share of records. The "Danner Memorial Window," created in 1913
and a prime example of Tiffany's glass, set a world auction
record for a Tiffany window at $1,986,000.
In 1996 Christie's New York achieved the previous world auction
record for a Tiffany window, selling the "Parakeets and Gold Fish
Bowl Window" for $1,047,500.
A mosaic column, inspired by the Byzantine mosaics Tiffany has so
much admired in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, sold for
$831,000. Four additional existing columns from the same series
are all in museum collections.
The Tiffany sale also realized $1,101,750 for the collection of
lamps from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Art Trust Collection. The
property from the Estate of Leslie N. Nash, probably the most
important archival material on the Tiffany studios to have come
to auction, attracted tremendous attention and sold for $630,462.
Oak and tile stand by Stickley and Grueby, circa 1900,
$105,000.
Other highlights of the morning sale were the "Nicolle" silvered
bronze and red lacquered wood cabinet by Jacques-Emile Ruhllmann
that sold for $336,000 and an upholstered macassar ebony sofa for
the Maharaja d'Indore by the same designer, which found a buyer
at $314,000. A diamond and gem-set silver and gold brooch
designed by Josef Hoffmann for Mrs Fritz Warndorfer and executed
by the Winter Werkstatte realized $292,000.
Gross sale results at the Twentieth Century Decorative Arts event
were $7,472,838; Tiffany: Innovation in American Design sale
achieved $6,629,143.
At Christie's East, a Private Collection of Italian Glass
garnered $1,559,059, and a Twentieth Century Decorative Arts sale
brought $1,152,134 for a total of $16,813,174 from all four
sales.
