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Antiques Trade Gazette


5


The Louvre acquires tureens made for George III


SOTHEBY’S Paris have announced that they have negotiated a private treaty sale to the Louvre for an undisclosed sum of a pair of silver tureens, covers, liners and stands by the French goldsmith Robert-Joseph Auguste. The tureens, marked for Paris 1778-1780 and weighing 1411oz, formed part of a grand dinner service made for George III, Elector of Hanover and King of England, 35 pieces of which are already in the museum’s collection. The service has a long and complex


history but, in short, it remained in Hanoverian family ownership until the 1920s when it was sold to two dealers, Cricthons of London and Gückselig of Vienna. Half of it was acquired by the Rothschild family and half by Louis Cartier. Today the Rothschild element is divided between the Louvre and


Left: the pair of tureens that will augment the Louvre’s holding of George III’s grand dinner service.


services have been melted down, the Louvre intends to use the tureens and other pieces from this Hanoverian service, all of which carry Auguste’s mark, to create a display of a table service à la française. It will be set up when the museum reopens its 18th century furniture section in 2013. In the UK, private treaty sales by


Waddesdon Manor. These tureens come from the Cartier part, which was sold by Sotheby’s Monaco in 1979. They were then acquired by the gemmologist


and artist-jeweller Alexandre Reza from whose collection Sotheby’s negotiated the private sale. Given that so many French royal


auctioneers have been around for some time, but in France where a law was only recently passed allowing auctioneers to conduct them, they are more of a novelty.


Anne Crane


Paris salerooms have a good 2011 with the top three way ahead


LATE December is when the Paris rooms traditionally produce their bilan or annual sales figures. For 2011, as in 2010, there remain three front runners who are way ahead of the others. Sotheby’s and Christie’s are pretty close. At €190m,


Sotheby’s France figures represent a nine per cent increase over 2010. Christie’s France edged ahead of their competitors, recording sales of €199m, a 13 per cent increase and their best figures since 2009 when the Yves Saint Laurent sale put them way out in front at an exceptional €455m. While the Saint Laurent sale would be a hard act to follow, Christie’s figures were given a boost by the Château de Gourdon sales which contributed €43.8m. In terms of individual results, the big two produced


plenty of the Paris market’s top prices, with 29 lots surpassing the €1m level at Sotheby’s and 21 at Christie’s. Art Curial, who registered sales of €127m, held on to


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on the €102.8m recorded in 2010, impressive in the context of last year but slightly less than the 28 per cent increase seen the year before. They also saw seven results topping the €1m mark. Drouot, the communal auction facility in the city centre


used by most Paris auctioneers, which reorganised its management structure last summer, recorded an eight per cent increase to €475m (€440m in 2010). Piasa, who led the Drouot roll-call of auctioneers in


2010 at €45m, thanks to results like their €9m Daniel Carasso Collection, were down this time on €23.5m (although that figure does not include any of the €10.2m Fabius Frères sale that Piasa held in association with Sotheby’s). Other Drouot totals for 2011 include Gros et


74x69_stapleford 2011 ad 92.5 x 136 09/01/2012 11:22 Page their third position. This represents a 23 per cent increase


Delettrez on €38m (thanks in no small part to the €23.7m garnered from the Paul Louis Weiller collection); Millon on €38.7m (Paris and Swiss figures combined) Pierre Bergé & Associés €38.3m (Paris and Brussels


operations combined) and Beaussant Lefevre on €21.3m. Tajan recorded €42.6m of sales at Drouot, their


Espace Tajan and Monaco, a 12 per cent increase that was boosted by an €8m sale of the collection of Jorge de Brito in October. Aguttes’ sales at Drouot, Neuilly and Lyon Brotteaux


combined yielded €36.6m, a nine per cent increase over 2010. In a year where 15 of their individual lots surpassed the


€1m level, Drouot‘s top individual price was the premium- inclusive €2,912,000 for a Mayan figure of a seated divinity from the H Law Collection sold by Binoche & Giquello in March. Beyond the French capital, the Ivoire group, which has


12 salerooms around the country, recorded €80.4m. All figures quoted are premium-inclusive. n See pages 40-42 for the latest Paris sales reports. Anne Crane


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