SALES STRONG ACROSS THE BOARD AT JOHN MORAN’S JULY ANTIQUES AND FINE DECORATIVE ARTS SALE Pasadena, CA – The success of John Moran’s July 28th, 2009 Fine Antiques and Estate Sale proved that even in a difficult economy buyers are seeking exceptional items with undiminished enthusiasm. The
News-Antique.com - Aug 04,2009 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Jayne Skeff
August 1, 2009 Publicist for John Moran
(626) 296-6642
jayne@jslamedia.com
For comments on this Auction, please contact:
Jeff Moran, John Moran Antique and Fine Art Auctioneers
(626) 793-1833, email: jeff@johnmoran.com
SALES STRONG ACROSS THE BOARD AT JOHN MORAN’S
JULY ANTIQUES AND FINE DECORATIVE ARTS SALE
Pasadena, CA – The success of John Moran’s July 28th, 2009 Fine Antiques and Estate Sale proved that even in a difficult economy buyers are seeking exceptional items with undiminished enthusiasm. The two-session sale featured an intriguing mix of estate property, encompassing silver, porcelain, Western and Native American, Continental paintings, modern art, jewelry and Russian icons. Uniting this diversity of riches was the consistently high level of quality, which drew a large number of national and international bidders and brought strong results.
Moran’s afternoon Discovery Session, an un-catalogued sale designed for the local market and open to floor bidding only, always yields excellent finds for those who attend. Among the treasures in store for attendees this time was a magnificent pair of 19th century Meissen porcelain table lamps modeled after two of the Four Seasons. The pair realized $1,840. Doubling the high end of its pre-sale estimate, a hand-painted porcelain plaque depicting the Mother and Child realized $1,840, while an 8-piece lot of glass scent bottles, which included some Lalique and was estimated at $500 – 700, sold for $1,150. Discovery Sale silver offerings were plentiful, including English and Continental sterling, and Dutch, German and Mexican silver. A group of twenty Buccellati sterling silver serving utensils, the first of several Buccellati offerings, brought $1725. In all, over 150 lots were offered in the Discovery Auction, and 85% of them sold.
The catalogued Evening Sale performed similarly well, with a continuation of the strong porcelain and silver sales seen in the earlier session. Silver in animal forms was a minor theme of the evening, and a popular one. A pair of sterling Buccellati candlesticks in a sinuous Baroque-style dolphin form, with a pre-sale estimate of $1500 - 2500, realized $3,738. A pair of German silver pheasants, probably from Augsberg, attracted a great deal of attention, and deservedly so. Estimated at $800 – 1200, the stunningly realistic game birds, displaying detailed modeling and a wonderful sense of movement, became the object of fierce competitive bidding that brought their final price to $2,875. Realizing $2,185 was a wonderful pair of jointed, Buccellati style sterling lobsters.
Among the porcelain offerings was a Berlin KPM plaque depicting a beauty, Clementine, after a work by C. Kiesel. This sublime work, in an ornately carved gilt frame, carried an estimate of $10,000 – 15,000 and inspired a frenzy of telephone and internet bidding, achieving a final price of $19,550.
An impressive price of $17,250 was paid for a pair of monumental Sevres style porcelain vases decorated with scenes from Napoleon’s campaigns that were mounted as lamps and had been assigned a presale estimate of $6,000 – 8,000.
