The first part of Christie's three-day sale of Laurent Negro's collection — he is emptying out the Château de Gourdon, his castle in the south of France — tallied €24.3 million ($34.3 million) for the 77 most prestigious design lots in the sale last night.
Results for this highly-anticipated segment of the auction were mixed, with few high-profile buy-ins and a stretch of intense bidding for furniture by the glamorous icon of French Art Deco, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann.
While there was speculation beforehand that the three-day sale of Negro's collection would top the €59.2 million ($83.4 million) achieved by Christie's sale of Art Deco masterpieces owned by late fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé in 2009, this now seems unlikely to occur. (The overall tally for the Saint-Laurent sale was much higher: $484 million.) The Gourdon evening sale had an 82 percent sell-through rate by lot and 80 percent sell-through rate by value.
"Overall we got some terrific results," Philippe Garner, international head of 20th Century decorative art & design at Christie's, and Christie's has gone all-out in preparing the event, setting up a mini-museum across an entire wing of the Palais de Tokyo and producing a glossy, three-part boxed set catalog.
"There were plenty of really strong prices which I wouldn't have dared second-guess," Garner added. "It was a great day for Ruhlmann across the board. There were good prices among the Modernist pieces which are a central part of the collection. We're on target and we saw some really exciting bidding. The room felt satisfied."
The pieces by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann anchored the evening. First, a desk and chair set previously owned by three-time French prime minister André Tardieu and bearing his name, sold for €2.3 million ($3.2 million), in the lower range of its €2-3 million estimate, to prominent dealers Robert and Cheska Vallois, leaving onlookers speculating that the desk would become the centerpiece in the Vallois' booth at Paris's Biennale des Antiquaires later this year. The desk was created for the 1929 Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris, when Ruhlmann hoped to impress the young and newly-crowned Maharajah of Indore — who subsequently ordered the same desk in Macassar ebony.
Ruhlmann's ski-inspired chaise longue was the subject of an in-room duel and sold for €2,865,000 ($4,048,245), setting an artist's record and making it the top lot of the evening. This price was toward the high end of its €2-3 million estimate. In an interesting coincidence, the chair was shown with the Tardieu desk in 1929 — and appeared at Galerie Vallois's stand at the Biennale des Antiquaires in 2008. The chaise longue was associated with one of five artist auction records set last night, with carpets by Fernand Léger and Francis Bacon, a pair of stools by René Coulon, and a majestic bed by Louis Majorelle rounding out the group.
A late surge saw six more Ruhlmann pieces sell, with two shattering their pre-auction estimates. The designer's 1926 Nicolle drinks cabinet sold for €1.5 million ($2.1 million), more than tripling its €400,000 high estimate. Ruhlmann's Lassalle commode then achieved a price of €1.8 million ($2.5 million), against an estimate of only €500-700,000.
Collectors were closely watching a handful of Eileen Gray designs, mindful that one of her armchairs set a €21.9 million record at the Yves Saint-Laurent sale. The Irish Modernist pioneer had a decidedly mixed evening. Her black Briques screen sold for €1.35 million ($1.9 million) after cautious bidding, but one of two centerpiece lots, the green-fabric Transat chair, failed to sell. The other, the curvaceous Bibendum chair, fetched a timid €709,000 ($1 million), a total which was nevertheless solidly within its estimate of €600-800,000 euros. A couple of smaller works were bought in, but several other Gray creations are to be offered in the coming days.
Two works by Swiss lacquer and interior designer Jean Dunand had also been much touted ahead of the sale. His unique black-and-white games table, created for famed "architect of dressmakers" Madeleine Vionnet, was estimated between €3-5 million euros, but stalled at €2.6 million without attracting a single bid. Dunand's palm tree-inspired smoking room wood paneling from 1936 fared better, selling for €2.2 million ($3.1 million), a smidgen above its €2 million low estimate. Garner pointed out that both the Ruhlmann chaise longue and the Dunand paneling have been classified as "national treasures," potentially limiting bidders to those who are unfazed by France's tight export restrictions.
The Château de Gourdon sale continues tonight and Thursday, with a total of 902 lots, from books and photographs to paintings, antique guns, and swords — as well as more Art Deco furniture and design.
(Artinfo)
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