Glass work fetches glittering prices

A recent auction in New York of glass collectibles saw perfume bottles, antique paperweights, vintage art glass and pate-de-verre achieve notably high prices.

The Doyle New York Belle Epoque auction saw a Japanese collector acquire a Rene Lalique perfume bottle design for $8,625 (P9,276).

Perfume bottles as works of art reached a high point with the designs of Rene Lalique (18601945). First renowned for his Art Nouveau jewellery and work in gold, Lalique created thousands of designs for glass after 1900, the most numerous of which were scent bottles.

The top lot in the perfume bottles section of the auction was a Lalique design, Bouchon Fleurs de Pommiers, circa 1919. Made of a clear, colourless glass, it was described by William Doyle Galleries as "exquisitely moulded with a scalloped pattern and cascade stopper". It fetched $8,625.

Another perfume bottle, Blue Lagoon, designed by Julien Viard before the first World War and produced by Depinoix in 1919, sold for $7,475, twice its estimate.

The first item in the Dubarry line was a frosted glass bottle capped by a kneeling Egyptian princess, its stopper decorated with green patina and gilding.

The bottle was decorated with lotus flowers and fruit garlands.

Another perfume bottle Souvenir d'un Soir (1956) by Mary Chess, a replica of the Pulitzer fountain on the southeast corner of Central Park, New York, went to a collector for $5,175.

Antique French paperweights by houses such as Saint Louis, Clichy and Baccarat are typified by rich colour, delicacy and imagination.

A Saint Louis paperweight fetched $5,750, a Clichy paperweight went for $3,450 and a Baccarat paperweight sold for $2,530.

Early Tiffany Favrile glass vases featured in the auction. A Tiffany & Co sterling silver mounted Favrile glass vase, with a neck worked with grape clusters, fetched $23,000, while another Tiffany Favrile glass vase fetched $21,850. A signed Schneider glass vase made $11,500.

Pate-deverre, created by filling a mould with grains of glass and heating until the grains fuse together, featured in the auction.

The highlight of this section was an Henri Cros pate-de-verre plaque depicting dancing nudes set in an Art Nouveau bronze stand, which fetched $11,500. A pate-de-verre vase by A.G. Argy-Rousseau, moulded with purple flowers, sold for $9,200. More perfume bottles will be auctioned at Doyle New York on June 6th.

Ms Jill Cox, director of Beaufield Mews Antiques, Stillorgan, Dublin, specialises in glass and early Irish glass. "We have early Irish perfume bottles from the 1790s and sampling bottles - those little ones like a pencil with a hole where the lead would be."

Sampling bottles tend be valued in the £50 to £150 range, depending on the condition. Most of them are missing their stoppers. The stoppers were attached to a long pin that went down the middle of the sample bottles.

"You put the pin in and you rubbed your hand so you could sample the perfume . . . We have the double-ended red ones, one for perfume and one for smelling salts."

Usually made of ruby glass, they tended to be very well made and usually had a silver top each end. The cork tended to be inset into the lid.

The early Irish perfume bottles cost "probably £150 on upwards. They are beautifully cut - lovely little things. Later than 1790s you get them much cheaper".

Beaufield Mews Antiques also has a selection of Victorian crown perfumery bottles, which are "either in the shape of a crown themselves or they have a lid - the stopper - in the shape of a crown". They cost anything from £80 "up to several hundred".

jmarms@irish-times.ie