News-Antique.com - Nov 17,2010 - NEW YORK -- A ‘perfect storm’ of superb consignments from three collections have combined to make the Dec. 4 Heritage Auctions Signature® Lalique, Art Glass and Perfume Bottles Auction one of the premiere Decorative Arts auctions of the season, taking place at The Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute), 2 East 79th Street (at 5th Ave.).
“This is one of the finest glass auctions I’ve ever worked on,” said Nick Dawes, Consignment Director at Heritage and well-known Antiques Roadshow personality, who has been organizing glass auctions for more than 30 years. “This auction represents the confluence of two amazing estates, one composed entirely of Lalique and the other featuring Lalique and perfume bottles assembled over 40 years by Shirley Jacobs Alter of Beaumont, TX.”
These two estates are being combined with an extraordinary collection of Daum and Gallé from a Southern California estate, the second half of an old Gallé collection featuring a ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ artistic tour-de-force, a lifetime collection of French art glass from Long Island and an impressive collection of Lalique hood ornaments, all from American private collectors. Add to this a New Jersey estate that yielded fine American art glass and a rare Lalique perfume bottle among the many gems, and the auction becomes a more-than-400 lot celebratory survey of art glass sure to capture collector attention at the highest levels.
The Saturday, Dec. 4 auction will be offered in two sessions beginning at 3 p.m. EST.
“One of the best things about Roadshow is getting to meet collectors from all corners of the country, some of whom have been dormant for decades,” said Dawes, whose first annual auction devoted to French art glass at Heritage debuted last December. “Now it’s had a direct impact on an important auction at Heritage.”
Last June Dawes was in San Diego, where Roadshow kicked off its summer season. An exquisite art glass collection surfaced that had been assembled mostly in the 1970s.
“That was when you could still buy this kind of thing reasonably,” said Dawes. “This is an assortment of mostly ‘cabinet size’ French glass vases, painted and decorated in cameo overlay by Daum and Gallé during the Belle Epoque, an extraordinary thing to see. This is a collector who has quite an eye, and appears to be very discerning about condition and overall quality.”
Highlights of the group include several rare ‘Rain’ vases, decorated with rainy landscape scenes, produced by Daum about 1900, and a strong variety of landscape vessels, coupled with tiny vases of exceptional form.
In addition to this fabulous selection, the auction will feature the second half of a private Galle and Thomas Webb collection held for decades in a southern state, first offered – with great success – earlier this year in May, all of which was purchased in France in the late 1960s and ‘70s. It features two ‘blow-out’ vases, and a virtuoso ‘Jeanne D’Arc’ overlay vase.
The art glass session is completed by some early artistic Gallé from a New Jersey estate and a
