A sting in the SALE
Spellbinding flora and fauna dazzled in the Christie’s salesroom late last year, as one of the most important collections of René Lalique jewellery came to auction, with wasps stealing the show. ROSANNA MORRIS follows the buzz…
When the Christie’s auctioneer called for bids for lot 45 in a packed salesroom in Geneva last November, telephones started going and interested bidders leaned in to catch his eye.
The lot in question, an art nouveau pendant by designer René Lalique depicting four wasps on a hawthorn branch, was the last of the Lalique consignment in the sale that day, and specialists knew something interesting was going to happen. Quite how interesting, they could not have anticipated. The three-dimensional pendant, with its breathtakingly realistic gold wasps sporting diamond wings, formed part of the largest collection of art nouveau jewellery ever to come to auction. And the estimate of £68,000–£98,000 was soon left behind when highly charged bidding carried the price to £735,000 – a world record for a piece of Lalique jewellery.
‘Everyone knew it was going to be important, as this was one of his masterpieces,’ says Marie-Cécile Cisamolo, a junior specialist who oversaw the Beyond Boundaries sale on 13th November. ‘You could feel the electricity in the room when it came up. The person who bought it was sitting in the front row and looking directly at the auctioneer. He didn’t stop bidding – it was as if he was saying “This is mine”.’
The 45 pieces of Lalique jewellery that were sold during the sale were from an important private European collection assembled by a couple who had amassed impressive artworks, as well as magnificent jewels. The husband liked to surprise his wife with beautiful pieces by Georges Fouquet and Lalique. ‘I can’t describe what it was like to handle these pieces,’ says Cisamolo. ‘There was tray after tray of them.’
According to Cisamolo, the Lalique works comprised one of the best hoards her colleagues had seen in decades. The auction catalogue was a work of art in itself as Lalique’s peacocks, dragonflies, wasps and nymphs leapt from its pages in sprays of lavender, raspberries, lotus leaves, poppies, pansies, thistles and cornflowers. Another wasp pendant
reached £325,000 against an estimate of £45,000–£60,000, while a daring and modern-looking moonstone pendant went for £307,000, eclipsing its £34,000– £50,000 estimate. Lot after lot sold for way above estimate, testament to the popularity of Lalique’s jewellery – as spectacular as his glass objects, for which he is more widely known.
Having grown up in Aÿ-Champagne in the Marne region of France, Lalique became the family breadwinner in 1876 after his father died. He showed great talent as a draughtsman, so his mother found him a job as an apprentice to Louis Aucoc, a world-respected Parisian jeweller
Lalique was seen as the number one art nouveau jeweller… He borrowed much from nature, mysticism, sensuality, fairy tale and classical literature
and silversmith. He attended the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and spent two years at art school in England. On returning to the French capital he worked as a designer for Boucheron, Cartier and other jewellers, and eventually opened his own boutique in 1885. He made a name for himself with his stylised designs – Emile Gallé hailing him ‘the inventor of modern jewellery’.
‘He was seen as the number one art nouveau jeweller,’ says Eric Knowles, Antiques Roadshow specialist and author of Lalique. Knowles says that, while Lalique stayed true to the mantra of traditional jewellery design of