The second stock sale from the French ceramics specialist Christophe Perlès was held at Drouot by Pescheteau-Badin (26% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on November 26.
Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Anne Crane
It added 140 lots to the overall dispersal this year, bringing a grand total for the two auctions of just under €1.4m including premium.
This second sale featured a similar mix to the first, held in June, offering French faience and tinglazed earthernwares from other European centres of production; porcelain and biscuit pieces from the major and minor French factories and a taste of porcelain from Germany and Italy.
The highest price in this second dispersal was €105,000 (£93,750) paid for a rare Vincennes seau à verre or wine glass cooler from the so-called service bleu celeste made for Louis XV and delivered in 1754. This is the second item from this famous service that the auction house has offered within the space of just over a month. In a mixed-owner sale on October 19 an entrée dish was pre-empted by the Chateau of Versailles for €95,000 (£84,820).
The second Perlès sale also had its own pre-emption from a major French institution. The Louvre secured a later royal piece of Sèvres from the reign of Louis-Philippe, c.1835.
This was an 18in (45cm) wide oval plate from the so-called déjeuner des Portraits de la Famille Royale featuring a detailed topographical scene: the cour d’honneur of Chateau of Neuilly with the royal family in a carriage drawn by white horses.
The scene is bordered by classical motifs with two winged figures supporting an oval inscribed Chateau de Neuilly Coeur d’Honneur, 1835.
The Louvre secured the tray at a lower-estimate €20,000 (£17,860).
Unusual drug jar
Another notable price in this second auction – a quadruple-estimate €48,000 (£42,860) – came from the large section devoted to French faience. This was an unusual and early, mid-16th century, spouted drug jar from Rouen decorated in the style of Italian maiolica of the period.
The 9in (23cm) high jar was also monogrammed MAB for the Masseto Abasque workshop and was part of an extensive commission for 4152 drug jars ordered from the workshop by the Rouen apothecary Pierre Dubosc in 1545.