As with past sales the catalogue covers many serious and interesting items, augmented by pieces from the estates of former Sydney retail figure Charles Lloyd Jones and Melbourne restaurant identity, Gloria Staley.
The surprises include a private Melbourne collection of bronzes and drawings by the 1960s British artist Michael Ayrton – who followed in the shoes of Henry Moore – plus strong offerings of Asian art, sculpture and Australiana.
A key offering, of course, is the grand piece of “exhibitioniana”, the sumptuous sideboard by Peter McLean (and others) discussed in a previous article on this website – see Sotheby’s set to smash record for Australian furniture.
The sale gets under way with a small collection of Japanese inro from a Sydney collection, Lots 1 to 4. At their best, these little sets of nested boxes for seals, snuff and the like, which were designed to hang from a wearer’s sash, epitomise the decorative skills of their Meiji-era makers, often combining exquisite lacquer work and shibayama inlay of precious materials such as ivory and gold. These examples, which according to their lady vendor may once have surfaced at Sydney’s venerable Lawsons, are signed by makers including Ekishin and Ryoichi, and come complete with their associated carved netsuke (toggles) and ojime (beads) which also bear makers’ marks. Estimates range upwards from $6000.
Yuan and Ming ceramics including celadons, Southeast Asian pots and dishes, Chinese snuff bottles and scrolls, and Tibetan and Nepalese artifacts also figure in the Asian offering.
Among the furniture is, a nicely patinated 1830s rosewood pedestal sofa table (lot 273) from the Lloyd Jones collection, which also includes silver curios and a collection of Staffordshire pottery animals.
Elsewhere in the sale is furniture by the turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau figure Louis Majorelle, while the Australian section includes a large oval cedar dining table on turned and carved legs (lot 324), cedar breakfast tables by Joseph Sly (lot 313) and Andrew Lenehan (lot 322), even an occasional table in rare NSW beefwood (lot 328).
Chief among the European sculpture is perhaps the rare and classic 1.2m high bronze group of a hunter and hounds by Arthur Waagen (Lot 217 ), which carries an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000, but there are also numerous figures including bronze-and-ivories by Zach, Colinet and Preiss.
Silver includes a London-made 1861 commemorative chalice decorated with Australian native animals presented to a Deniliquin magistrate (lot 348), a pair of 1812 entree dishes by Paul Storr (lot 362) and rare Irish silver “freedom” boxes (lots 355-7) - so-called because they conferred the freedom of various cities to worthy individuals.
Among the European and Australian art are prints by Brett Whiteley and David Hockney from the Staley collection, which also includes a collection of rare cookbooks, and two albums of photographs of Victorian cities and landscapes circa 1900 (lot 241).