14 19th June 2010 london selection london ceramics sale continued from page 12


Kirsch of Elfriede Langelohe and Dr Segal of Basel were all there for Part One, but they seemed to do more bidding this time and come away with more purchases. At the first sale there was a degree of price sensitivity and comments that estimates for some things were too high, perhaps reflecting the Hoffmeisters’ preferences rather than market trends. Armorial-decorated Meissen, their great passion, is a rarified collecting field where they were the major players and Italian armorial pieces in particular had proved a major stumbling block.


In the interim, Bonhams had pared down some of the estimates and had taken some of the Italian-interest pieces off to a special viewing in Venice at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. This excursion seemed to help, as Bonhams’ Nette Megens, who took the pieces to Venice, reported interest and pre-sale Italian commissions. Come sale day this translated into some phone bidding from that quarter which combined with competition from German trade in the room. In the event all eight of the Italian armorials changed hands, divided between four different buyers.


Most went as predicted, but a couple of lots pictured and discussed on pages 12 were contested to higher levels. As at the Byrnes collection


offered at Christie’s two weeks earlier, discussed on pages 10 to 12, the most popular pieces were early lots of impressive Oriental-inspired design and decoration with a direct provenance to Augustus the Strong and the Japanese Palace. A selection are shown on these pages, including the 81


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Left: Imari is not always fashionable, but the fine painting and design on this plate took it to £56,000 at the Hoffmeister sale.


expectations of £2000-3000 and joined the unsolds. Despite lower estimates,


in (22cm) high bottle vase pictured on


page 11 that topped the Hoffmeister bill at £110,000 or the kakiemon-decorated dish that was carried off by Errol Manners at £29,000, pictured on page 12. The second highest price of the sale was paid for a 10in (25cm) circular dish from the Japanese Palace. This was a piece that had been sold off from the Johanneum in 1920 and was acquired by the Hoffmeisters in 1987at Sotheby’s as part of a two-piece lot.


The dish was decorated in the Imari


pattern. This is not as fashionable taste these days as the Kakiemon style, but it was a particularly good example, “a great design” felt Bonhams’ Sebastian Kuhn, with a good balance of blue and gilts and


well-conceived decoration extending even to the reverse. The room concurred. There were plenty of would-be bidders and a final battle between two bidders that took it to £56,000, almost four times the estimate. Contrast this with a couple of Imari dishes offered a few lots later, an 81


in (22cm) version decorated with a radiating panel alternating with a dark blue and white ground that sold at a below-estimate £7500, or a slightly smaller plate painted with Imari-style borders and a central Indianische Blumen central spray that failed to match


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there were still some big-ticket pieces that failed to get away. The


Hoffmeisters’ Christie-Miller Service pieces were still a stumbling block. In Part One, bidding on a couple of octagonal plates from this service fell some way short of their £20,000-30,000 guides and both failed. This time around a third plate still failed to get away despite a lower £15,000-25,000 guide, while a rare ten- sided dish finely painted by C.F. Herold with quayside scenes, carrying a £50,000- 70,000 estimate, couldn’t get further than £34,000. Given the greater success of the more modestly estimated Christie- Miller pieces at King Street two weeks earlier, discussed on page 11, estimates were probably still too stiff.


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