French Porcelain Brings $1.8 Million

NEW YORK CITY

:Christie's sale of important European furniture, works of art, ceramics, tapestries and carpets conducted at Rockefeller Center realized a total of $10,161,500 and 70 percent sold by lot. The sale was highlighted by an ormolu and silver-gilt mounted Vincennes cistern, made in 1754 for Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, which achieved $1,808,000 and set a world auction record for French porcelain.

The richly painted cistern, modeled as a dolphin with coral, shells and crustaceans, was originally conceived for Louis XV's daughter-in-law Marie-Josephe de Saxe, daughter of Augustus the Strong. It went, however, to Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour and favorite of the king, as it was customary for her to acquire the first production of a new model.

Jody Wilkie, senior vice president, international head of European ceramics, said, "We are ecstatic with the explosive sale results for Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain. The success of the top four lots is due to the fact that each was a masterpiece, each had major provenance, and each was completely fresh and unknown to the international art market for over 50 years."

Will Strafford, senior vice president, head of European furniture, said, "Rare and precious objects continue to be hotly sought after by today's collectors, none more so than the extraordinary wax portrait of Pope Pius V by Giovanni Battista Capocaccia, which made the astounding price of $480,800, and was sold from the collection of Dr Bernard Breslauer. We were also delighted with two other significant collections in the sale - the stylish California collection highlighted by the Italian porphyry urns, which sold for $180,000, and the Noble collection led by the rare Louis XV blue glass garniture, which realized $240,000."

The Italian polychrome-decorated wax relief portrait of Pope Pius V by Capocaccia, Rome, 1566-1567, was the sale's second highest selling lot, a jewel-like portrait depicting the Pope's secretary, Teodosio Fiorenzi, kneeling at his feet.

Bringing $374,400 was a pair of Sevres genre paintings, known as tableaux, porcelain plaques conceived as paintings. The pair, painted in 1776 by Nicolas Charles Dodin, depicts a scene of peasants after a painting by David Teniers the Younger. Dodin was one of the finest painters en miniature working at Vincennes and Sevres in the Eighteenth Century.

A pair of Sèvres flower still life paintings (tableaux), painted in 1774 by Jacques-François Micaud, a Sevres flower painter from 1757 to 1810, realized $318,400, and a pair of Sèvres two-handled vases, 1774-1775, gilt by Etienne Le Guay, one of the factory's most prolific gilders, sold for $240,000.

Rounding out the sale's top ten lots were an Italian mythological tapestry, circa 1583, by Benedetto di Michele Squilli, $216,000; a Louis XV citronnier, tulipwood, amaranth, sycamore and marquetry bureau de dame, mid-Eighteenth Century, $192,000; a pair of Spanish silvered clear and blue foil-backed mirrors, $192,000; and a pair of Italian porphyry covered urns, Nineteenth Century, $180,000.

Prices reported include buyer's premium.

For information, 212-636-2000 or www.christies.com.