Date: Fri 09-Apr-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LIZAM

Quick Words:

Vega

Full Text:

French Creations At Vagabond

By Rita Easton

NAPLES, FLA. -- A full house was in attendance at the major estates auction

conducted in two sessions by Vagabond Auctioneers on March 6 and 7.

A steady stream of onlookers filed through at previews from February 24 to

March 6, viewing the 278 lots of period furniture, porcelain, and pottery,

Japanese Satsuma, bronzes, lamps and lighting, clocks, and silver. A gross of

$75,674.50 was realized.

Crossing the block at the highest price of the day, an Eighteenth Century

French secretary desk/bookcase sold on the phone to the trade at $6,380. The

oak and fruitwood lot featured an architectural pediment and double glazed

traced doors over a slant front desk with small drawers which were parquetry

inlaid and pigeonholed in the fitted interior. The piece had been previously

sold at a 1967 Butterfield auction and was offered at Vagabond with the old

catalogue accompanying the lot.

A 28-piece partial set of Old Paris breakfast porcelain, the set having White

House provenance with ties to the Rutherford B. Hayes administration, sold for

$2,420 to the National First Ladies Society of Canton, Ohio; a French bronze

of a horse and jockey in the style of Isidore Bonheur, standing 27 inches

high, went to the trade at $3,300; and an elaborate Victorian New Orleans

brass three quarter bed realized $1,650, going on the phone to the trade.

An Art Deco bronze figural group, a girl in a green patinated dress feeding

deer, signed "D. Costan," 13 inches high, fetched $2,090; and an English

George III chest of drawers in mahogany with satinwood string inlay top made

$2,860 against a presale estimate of $1,500, privately purchased.

A Louis XV provincial copper wall fountain on a fruitwood panel, with

cupboard, sold at $2,200, going to a decorator; a pair of Meissen porcelain

centerpiece bases garnered $2,200; a Meissen figurine of a fruit seller sold

at $1,650; a Minton Majolica figural group went out at $2,200; a pair of

Egyptian Revival bronze and marble winged sphinxes made $2,200; a fine Satsuma

vase reached $935; and a monumental Eighteenth Century Chinese cinnabar carved

lacquer box brought $2,420.

Prices quoted reflect a ten percent buyers' premium when paid for by cash or

check, and a twelve percent premium where credit cards are used.