Delicate art from bygone eras
● Strauss & Co has announced details of its forthcoming decorative arts sale in Cape Town at the Vineyard Hotel on October 7. This specialist sale is well known for featuring important single-owner collections, and the upcoming spring sale includes art and objects from China,
England and Japan drawn from two notable collections: the Andrew Newall Collection and the Estate late Mrs Sonia Lapin.
The Andrew Newall Collection comprises 150 pieces from the Orient and the Estate late Mrs Sonia Lapin encompasses jewellery, silverware and furniture.
Newall is the son of British-born artist Albert Newall, a pioneering abstract painter and photographer who settled in Cape Town and opened Gallery Medici in Kalk Bay. Andrew worked with his father. An entry in a 1975 guide to Cape Town listed Gallery Medici as “specialists in the unusual”.
Strauss & Co’s joint managing director Vanessa Phillips said: “Strauss & Co is delighted to be offering works from this wonderful private collection. Andrew’s passion and insight are self-evident in every one of the lots on offer.”
The sale will start with a large Ming Dynasty blue and white vase from the Wanli period (estimate R30,000–R40,000).
Standout ceramic pieces include a dish decorated with a pair of dragons in pursuit of flaming pearls with Qianlong mark, a Ming-style dish from the Qing Dynasty and a doucai lotus pond and ducks bowl from the period of emperor Jiaqing. The three ceramic pieces carry estimates of R35,000– 40,000 each.
The collection also includes an exceptional celadon glass and cinnabar red overlay snuff bottle from the Qing Dynasty (estimate R12,000–R15,000) and a rare Qing Dynasty ruby-red glass snuff bottle produced by the Imperial Glassworks (estimate R12,000–R15,000) that is accompanied by a paper label for John Sparks Ltd, a respected 20th-century London dealer in Chinese snuff bottles.
The Chinese offerings span all the major periods of production.
The late Sonia Lapin (née Kalmanson) grew up in New York City but, after marrying Port Elizabeth-born businessman Joseph Lapin in 1971, lived for the rest of her life in Houghton, Johannesburg. The Lapins travelled extensively and collected prolifically. The upcoming sale will feature a selection of the late Sonia Lapin’s jewellery, furniture and silverware.
She focused on well-known Georgian silversmiths active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Her collection included pieces by Paul Storr, John Hawkins and The Batemans. She frequented well-known dealers in England and SA, including Garrard & Co and Sotheby’s Parke Bernet.
A pair of George III silver entrée dishes and covers by Joseph Angell I of London, purchased in Canada in 1978, carry an estimate of R25,000–R30,000.
Collectors are custodians of artefacts whose journeys into the future are unknown. The upcoming sale includes three Chinese blanc-de-chine pieces formerly owned by Italian journalist and author Dr Carlo Maria Franzero (1892–1986) and sold through Bluett & Sons Ltd, London, in 1974. The small sculptural pieces include a saddled horse (estimate R10,000–12,000) and figural group from the Kangxi period (estimate R12,000–R15,000).
Other notable lots on offer in the threepart decorative arts sale are two candleholders produced by celebrated Zimbabwean silversmith Patrick Mavros.
Both dated 2000, Root Tree and Klipspringer features a standing male and recumbent female klipspringer, while two standing elephants occupy the base of Root Tree and Elephant. The lots are estimated to sell for R70,000–R80,000 each.
Strauss & Co will be hosting an extensive programme of public talks and social events in the lead-up to this sale.
Contact numbers during viewing and the auction are: office 021-683-6560 and cellphone 078-044-8185. For more information contact bids@straussart.co.za conditionreports@straussart.co.za.