Christie's December 4th
Clarice Cliff Sale
Report
on Sale + Highlights
(As this sale
included part of Leonard Griffin's private collection , we asked Doreen
Jenkins a long-term club member, and friend of Len's to cover it for the
Clarice
Cliff Collectors Club and ClariceCliff.com)
[all prices include Buyers premium
and vat]
How good it was to see Christie's
starting their sale with Plates again after such a long time. It
seems to ‘acclimatize’ you into the sale, and if you don't get the one
you wanted, you can then re-focus your ‘most desirables’ which are further
into the sale.
The first 69 lots were part of Leonard
Griffin's personal collection. Here the quality and condition, along with
many perfect combinations of pattern AND shape, simply screamed
at you: Clarice at her finest! This confirmed that collectors WILL pay
good money for good items. A staggering £1880 was paid for the superbly
painted Gibraltar octagonal plate, £1057 for an impressive
Honolulu
Biarritz, £998 for a House and Bridge and
a high £998 (for its SIX inch size!) for a Mountain plate.
If you're a bit ‘sniffy’ about patterns,
let me tell you that a really good piece of Autumn Crocus
ALWAYS exceeds expectations as did lot 26 a Crocus Bon Jour
jug at £564, and after Len's pieces lot 224, a 12 person AutumnCrocus
Athens teaset, which with additional items, made £2585!
I was intrigued to see how well the
Smoking
accessories would do, and the most spirited bidding for the entire
sale and by far the most sought after piece, was Len's FarmhouseSmoker's
set estimated at £800-1000. With a flurry of bids it soared
to a staggering £3525, that must be the highest price ever for a
Clarice smoking accessory, surely? Later the Mountain 463 Cigarettes
and match holder also went way over estimate £250-350 up to £705
even though it was hairlined. By contrast an Orangesand Lemons
ashtray only made £141, and a Propeller one sold for a mere
£94 ~ what bargains!
Surprisingly, attendance was low,
given the wide variety of items on offer: from a Red Carpet Stamford
morning set for £8225, the Red Autumn Charger (amazingly
unsold!) Age of Jazz shape 432 at £7050, to
a miniature Tennis salesman's sample vase (Wow ~£1880!). Few
overseas bidders were apparent in the room, but of course even the sharpest
collector can never know who is bidding on the phone and this provided
competition
on many lots. But a lack of all encompassing competition in the
bidding resulted in several top quality expertly executed
items remaining unsold. Neither the money nor the confidence of collectors
for these was present. Perhaps those of you who greatly admired these were
frightened off by the estimates, or felt your ‘wallets’ couldn't
even begin the battle for future ownership? You do have to feel an ‘I’m
in with a chance’ mindset, because as we all know from experience, some
lots sell short of the estimate. This sometimes means you could
have got that piece you have coveted for years anyway! For example, a BlueFirs
565 vase sold for £1175, £200 short of estimate; a truly rare
provenanced Arab hand-modelled figure by Clarice in 1924 sold for
£822, £300 short of estimate, and a Sunrise octagonal
bowl was £70 less. There were several mixed lot items later in the
sale, of say 4 – 5 items which sold for £200-250, often £50
less than the stated price.
As always, on reflection, there were
bargains, and many ‘affordable’ (£250-£500) lots. By the way,
the two separate Bubbles napkins rings sold for £564 and £411,
yet I thought it was the latter which was more striking!
I wonder if the (revered) Conical
sifters suffered price fatigue? With Bon Jour
sifters ranging from £223 for Crocus to Honolulu at
£998 and the Conicals ranging from £176 for Viscaria
to £1292 for Blue Firs it was ‘open house’ for some
lucky or perhaps unsuspecting bidders. A perfect illustration about my
feelings regarding the estimates was this: a Blue Firs Conical
was estimated at £700-1000 and fetched £1292. But the BonJour
one in the same pattern was estimated at between £1200 and £1500,
and remained unsold. Now we ALL know that everybody's favourite ~ the Conical
~ has the ‘edge’, and usually the higher estimate?! And to think that not
one but two Orange Roof CottageConicals were ‘passed’ i.e.
unsold. Yes! That will teach you, you should have been there!
Interestingly, the lots of Clarice's
letters to Hilda Lovatt attracted a flurry of bids and sold for £223,
£305 and £235. Phyllis Woodhead's floral cigarette box which
she'd painted at the Burslem School of Art in 1929 fetched £152.
On the tea/coffee set front, Len's Red Carpet set achieved
£8225, yet amazingly his remaining sets were unsold.
There was some excitement
after
Len's 69 lots: a shape 462 Double Inkwell in
Solitude
literally doubled estimate at £1410, and the unique
Appliqué
Palermo coffee set for six (minus one can) reached a bargain £4465.
The Orange Carpet trio of teapot, milk and sugar fetched
£1292 illustrating that collectors will pay a GREAT deal more for
the red colourway! A Windbells Daffodil trio sold for £1500
~ that's £1250 more than a similar lot I saw sell 10 years ago. Unexpectedly,
the May Avenue Daffodil jug along with the majority
of plaques near the end of the sale, also failed to sell, yet a beautifully
painted Appliqué Avignon plate made £4112.
So what does all this mean? It was
a complex sale! Well, I noticed very few dealers there; perhaps
as Len's pieces are so well known they realised it would be almost impossible
to ‘cherry pick’ and sell them on at a profit a few weeks later as they
have done in the past? This certainly reduced competitive bidding. And
of course a few years back there was only ONE ‘autumn Clarice Cliff sale’.
Now we have offerings in Bath, Salisbury, and two other major London auctioneers.
Surely, December is too late for
the sale, collectors with families have an expensive time that month! Some
collectors buy early, and have no funds by Christie's, but whatever
happens the actual amount of money must be about the same? Still,
it is surprising that no one had the money or confidence to pay, for example,
the £5000 which would have secured the stunning Summerhouse
teaset, which was bought in 1931 in Nottingham and then sold to Len in
1988, and so has only had two owners in 72 years! I know he was ‘delighted’
to be taking this back home. And, as a last word who better to ask, than
Len?
DJ
"Of course, I realised that the
market was not at a “peak” at the time I chose to sell part of my collection,
so I am not disappointed, more surprised that some great
pieces did not sell. The following days (and even during the sale) we were
approached about “after sales” but I felt the estimates I resolved with
Christie's
were fair and realistic. After all, how often do you see a Bon
Jour Rudyard coffee set in 95% mint condition!? In
the past collectors have paid £3000 just for a 6 inch
Rudyard
vase, yet the 9 piece coffee set was estimated at a lower £3500."
"Overall, over 60% of the lots did
sell which I believe was a good achievement by Christie's. Just
because collectors did not have the confidence, and possibly funds, does
not change the long-term value of good pieces, and no seasoned collector
will sell when the market is on a ‘down swing’, so there won't be a flood
of cheap (good) pieces, indeed I suspect it will get harder to get
major pieces for a while?"
To view Len's pre-sale comments please
CLICK HERE.
CLICK
HERE for results on the Christie's Website **
BONHAM’S November 25th
Report
on Sale + Highlights
Johanna Friedwall reports, ‘There
were quite a few nice pieces in superb condition in the sale and the saleroom
was packed so all the ingredients were there for a good result. However,
bidding was sporadic. It may be a sign of the general market or
it may be that, with so much choice, bidders can afford to be choosy. The
best price in the sale was achieved by the Blue Firs Bon
Jour teaset which, due to some damage, had an attractive estimate of
£800–1200 but sold for £3500. The multi-coloured Trees
& House teaset was also well contested and reached £2800
despite damage to teapot and Athens jug, but the Kew Conical
coffee set failed to get enough bids and was bought in just below the reserve.
In Vases several good pieces
were over-looked, but lot 8, the House & Bridge meiping,
attracted a lot of interest. Unfortunately, despite being in good condition
with bright colours, it was slightly marred by the fact that whoever painted
it had managed to smudge some black paint onto the background in a few
places. This deterred at least two potential bidders and it sold mid estimate
at £2800.
The Honolulu Lotus
doubled its estimate when selling for £2600, which came as no surprise,
but I reckon the Palermo Conical jug was a good buy at £ 1300.
The Latona Mushroom failed to sell, which may have been due
to slightly too high an estimate. The pieces at the lower end seemed generally
easier to sell, possibly due to these having wider reserves and being valued
to sell but this market is of course also the larger one. In contrast,
the competition at the top end is so strong, vendors are sometimes able
to dictate reserves that, realistically, are slightly too high, especially
when the market is as fickle as it has been. All in all 114 of 194
lots did sell, but one can only wonder what the next few months have in
store – hopefully a general upturn!’
CLICK
HERE for results on the Bonhams Website **
