Bringing $189,000 and the top price of the sale was this Tiffany Studios Lotus Pagoda table lamp, circa 1910, 26½ inches high, that was stamped on both the shade and base and sold to a private New England collector ($150/200,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring; Photos Courtesy Rago Auctions & Toomey & Co
LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. — Art Nouveau and Art Deco glass and lighting were front and center on March 21, when Rago Auctions and Chicago-based Toomey & Co., hosted in Lambertville a 206-lot auction that celebrated “the excellence of late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century design.” The sale exceeded expectations, achieving a total of $1,716,326 with 95 percent of lots gaveling down successfully.
Tiffany is arguably one of, if not the, most famous makers of glass and lighting from that period. With nearly 48 percent of the sale, it correspondingly dominated not only the first half of the sale but also achieved eight of the top-ten results of the day, including the sale’s top lot, a Tiffany Studios Lotus Pagoda table lamp on a bronze Library Standard Mushroom base. Dated to circa 1910, the lamp model was published in Robert Koch’s Louis C. Tiffany’s Glass, Bronzes, Lamps: A Complete Collector’s Guide (1971), while the shade is published in Tiffany Lamps and Metalware: New Edition by Alastaire Duncan (2019). Though it was consigned to sale from a private New Jersey collection, it boasted provenance to the collection of Jeanne Laverne Dailey, whose estate Christie’s sold on December 17, 2011. Christie’s offered it for $80/120,000 and it brought $116,500. Rago and Toomey valued it at $150/200,000 and it sold to a New England private collector for $189,000.
Though it brought the sale’s second highest price of $113,400, a Tiffany Studios Daffodil lamp with Library Standard Mushroom base was “the real winner,” according to Mike Fredericks, Rago’s senior specialist for early Twentieth Century Design. It had been one of the favorites of the seller, a 104-year-old New Jersey collector. After significant competition, it sold to a trade buyer for $113,400, nearly double its high estimate.
“Rich blues tend to do well,” noted Mike Fredericks, regarding the rippled background glass and water effect of this Tiffany Studios Dragonfly table lamp that achieved $107,100 and the sale’s third highest price ($90/120,000).
If freshness to market was a strong selling point of the Daffodil lamp, deep rich blue hues helped drive interest in a Tiffany Studios Dragonfly lamp with Library Standard Cushion base. Consigned to sale from a New York City area collector, the circa 1910 lamp sold to a private US buyer for $107,100.
Rarity was the key to the success of a Tiffany Studios Tyler Scroll table lamp with bronze Tyler base. Considered a transitional design from geometric to organic, the lamp in the auction was exceptional with a multicolored background glass that distinguished it from examples with shades in more muted tones. It all but doubled its high estimate, finishing at $75,600. The price was, Fredericks speculated, a record for a Tyler Scroll lamp.
French designer and glass artisan Émile Gallé (1846-1904) was another name commonly associated with objects of glass and lighting from this time period, and the sale presented 23 examples for buyers to compete for. Heading those with a $69,300 price realized was a circa 1900 acid-etched enameled and gilt cameo glass vase with silver overlay that depicted two dragonflies as its primary design element.
Mike Fredericks described this dragonfly vase with silver overlay by Émile Gallé to be “a beautiful early example that far exceeded our expectations.” Made circa 1900 in France, the 6½-inch-tall acid-etched, enameled and gilt cameo glass had silver mounts marked “Cardeilhac Paris” and came from a private Midwest collection. A New York City area buyer netted it for $69,300 ($20/30,000).
“Art Nouveau furniture has been soft in the market,” noted Fredericks, but said a Libellules marquetry table by Gallé was “an exceptional example.” Found in California and incorporating oak, burl and mixed wood inlay, it sold to a New York City area buyer for $44,100. It was one of just a few pieces of furniture in the sale but warranted inclusion not least because it was the same model Gallé exhibited at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.
A Loetz Phänomen lamp shade with Austrian peacock base, made in Austria, circa 1900, came from a Midwest collection but sold to a New York City trade buyer for $13,860. It had previously been offered at Treadway Toomey Auctions in Oak Park, Ill., in 2015, when it hammered for $9,150 (not including the buyer’s premium).
A patinated metal Tree Trunk lamp base made circa 1906 by the Unique Art Glass & Metal Company was paired with an unattributed but American made early Twentieth Century leaded glass shade. An estimate of $1,2/1,800 was tempting enough for bidders to overlook that the base and shade had been later united or “married” and it sold for $7,860.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For more information, 609-397-9374 or www.ragoarts.com; or 312-563-0020 or www.toomeyco.com.
