Full line of Hermes items available in March 3 auction

An all-Hermes lineup will be offered in a Rare and Coveted Designer Accessories auction that will be conducted by Jasper52 on Wednesday, March 3. Thirteen Hermes Birkin bags – several valued at six figures – and 29 Kelly bags, clutches and wallets head the list of 143 lots.

Hermes Birkin 35 bag Colvert Blue porosus crocodile leather with gold hardware. Estimate: $94,000-$113,000. Jasper52 image

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Jasper52 offers huge selection of luxury jewelry March 2

More than 800 lots of authentic designer jewelry and watches are offered in a Jasper52 auction that will conclude on Tuesday, March 2. The sale features designs by Piaget, Bulgari, Van Cleef & Arpels and more.

David Webb 18K yellow gold and platinum 3 carat diamond and emerald ruby earrings. Estimate: $17,000-$20,000. Jasper52 image

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Cloisonné and its enameled cousins

It may only be glass dust baked into colorful decoration today, but cloisonné art defined royalty from its earliest period some 3,000 years ago. Today, that royal privilege is a common everyday auction favorite.

Around the third century B.C., the art of cloisonné featured gems and multicolored stones that were ground to perfectly to fit within thick, solid gold, wire soldered to a base metal and separated into compartments (cloisons) to complete a design, usually religious in nature. With the use of gems, only the wealthiest, mostly royal households, could commission these intricate and delicate works of expressive art.

This pair of late 19th century Meiji cloisonné vases shows the detail enamel work of land and waterscapes featuring colorful floral and geometric design throughout and a collector favorite in style and design that sold for $850 + the buyer’s premium in 2016. Image courtesy of Hill Auction Gallery and LiveAuctioneers

Slowly over time, the use of cut precious gems and stones to create cloisonné was eventually substituted with powdered or fragments of clear or opaque glass fired onto metal at high temperature becoming routine sometime around 14th century Europe. This method still shone like the earlier cut stones but made cloisonné art more accessible especially as decorative household items or worn as jewelry.

However, while cloisonné is enameling, not all enameling is cloisonné. While the use of powdered glass is constant, the manner that it is artistically applied differs.

Cloisonné

In the simplest way to describe it, the art of cloisonné is arranging thin metal walls along a pattern etched onto a metal base, usually gold. These individual cells, called cloisons, are then filled with powdered glass, either colored or clear, to the top of the thin metal walls and fired at high temperature to form a vitreous glaze known as hardened enamel. Once cooled, the surface is brushed with soft cloth creating a mirrored, glossy surface that brings out a striking colorful portrait or artistic pattern. By the 12th century, Western Europe had moved on from this technique in favor of a more detailed and creative style called champlevé.

Unlike cloisonné that uses thin wires to separate colors, patterns in champlevé are incised directly into a heavier metal such as copper and only the incision is filled with enamel and fired like this 19th century Russian silver box that sold for $600 (without buyer’s premium) in 2012. 
Image courtesy of Charles A. Whitaker Auction Co. and LiveAuctioneers

Champlevé

While cloisonné is achieved by inserting thin metal walls from which the design is created, the art of champlevé instead carves out the design directly onto a thicker metal surface, usually copper or other hard metals. The powdered glass is inserted into the carved metal up to the top of the metal surface and fired at high temperature to create a detailed pattern or decorative design. Even more artistic refinement was achieved through the process known as basse-taille.

Basse-taille

It would be difficult to distinguish champlevé from basse-taille, (meaning ‘low cut’) without a closer examination. Both rely on etching a complete pattern or design directly onto a hard metal surface with enamel filling in the carved pattern and fired at a high temperature. The difference between the two techniques, though, is that while champlevé has only one thickness of carving, basse-taille has at least one other carving that is below the thickness of the first. Using clear or translucent colored enamel interchangeably, the different layers produce a more three-dimensional look and feel to the final design, especially when used on a gold or silver base. The total effect of color, brightness and design was a skill that few could master and fell out of favor after the Renaissance.

In this Chinese example of plique-a-jour bowl the process starts out similar to cloisonné, but the metal base is removed to create a visually stunning stained glass effect that Tiffany was famous for. Image courtesy of Aspire Auctions and LiveAuctioneers

Plique-à-jour

Up to now, creating an enameled work of art required the process to be on a metal base. However, in 14th century France and Italy, the metal base was no longer found necessary. The process of plique-à-jour (meaning ‘light of day’) was more akin to stained glass in that metal strips form a pattern on a metal base, the glass powder is added to create the pattern, then the underlying metal base is removed. But instead of cut glass pieces to form a pattern like stained glass, the colored enamel allows light to shine through. The foremost artists of plique-à-jour enameling were Rene Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany and Peter Carl Faberge.

What Collectors Look For

There are other artistic forms of enameling such as niello (a black inlay on gold and silver), guilloché (repetitive patterns), gripoix (poured glass), taille d’épargne (black enamel tracing), en résille (enamel on rock crystal or glass) and damascening (inlay similar to the look of damask silk) each with a special artistic use of fired ground opaque, opalescent and transparent glass. Most have their origins in early history such as niello while others, like guilloché, can now be created mechanically.

While other examples of enamel are colorful and opalescent, niello is a dark inlay made from a mixture of sulphur, copper, silver and lead. When added to a base of gold and silver produces a dramatic contrast of light and dark similar to this 1915 Longines rose gold and silver pocket watch that sold for $250 + the buyer’s premium in 2015. Image courtesy of Hindman and LiveAuctioneers

Enameling, though, has been featured throughout the ancient world from Arabia to Europe usually as a regional artistic expression and mostly as a decorative display on cups, saucers, vases, religious objects, small boxes, personal jewelry, tableware and even decorative clocks. But there are differences to look for.

Chinese cloisonné, for example, has a smoother finish around the rims while Japanese cloisonné has more of a mottled feel like an orange peel. Tap the bottom. If it is not metallic (usually copper) then it isn’t authentic cloisonné and it is the Japanese cloisonné from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that are prized at auction for their sophistication and deep color.

The difference in style from cloisonné to champlevé and basse taille is another example. Cloisonné usually covers the entire metal surface while the others do not. Yet, champlevé and basse taille are somewhat similar until viewed closely to see the differences in the height of the cuts made into the metal itself; champlevé usually has only one level while basse taille has more.

Yet, with all the differences in style and technique of enameling whether vintage or historic, it is a matter of personal preference that will determine what collectors prize the most.

And while there is much to learn from each technique, once the differences are made clear, identifying each style becomes a most satisfying collecting experience filled with color, light and thousands of years of history.

Finally

Enameling in any form is an ancient artistic process originally intended as a visible display of wealth and sophistication for early royalty. Whether cloisonné, champlevé or any other variations of sleek, colorful and vintage enamelware will make any collector look and feel like royalty, too.

Giant eyeglasses focus of attention in NHADA auction Feb. 25

Leave it to the New Hampshire Antique Dealers Association to gather astonishing treasures from across America and beyond, which will be presented in a Jasper52 online auction on Thursday, Feb. 25. Museum-quality pieces among the nearly 400 lots offered include a rare Pennsylvania Mennonite quilt and a giant pair of eyeglasses that likely served as a trade sign.

Giant pair of eyeglasses, weathered original gilt surface, copper with glass inserts and iron hanger, 24in x 12in x 1½in, late 19th century. Estimate: $3,500-$4,000. Jasper52 image.

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Japan’s finest woodblock prints offered in online auction Feb. 24

A Jasper52 auction composed of vintage Japanese woodblock prints set for Wednesday, Feb. 24, will include what is considered by some to be the most beautiful work of its kind ever printed in Japan. A Book of Drawings of Flowers and Birds by Imao Keinen (1845-1924) contains 164 large oban format prints in four volumes.

Imao Keinen (1845-1924) ‘A Book of Drawings of Flowers and Birds,’ Series 164, 1891-92, large oban-sized prints in four volumes, approximately 15 x 10in each volume. Estimate: $14,000-$17,000. Jasper52 image

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Tureens offer a feast of artistry

NEW YORK – Humans have eaten soup for thousands of years but have served them from tureens for only a few hundred. Dinnerware designers elevated the large covered serving bowl into the form dubbed the tureen in the early 18th century and quickly understood its potential as an artistic showpiece. Hosting a dinner party is known as entertaining, after all, and serving soup from a vessel festooned with maidens, cherubs, cornucopias, garlands, painted landscape scenes and other expensive, labor-intensive frippery that enchants and holds the eye certainly counts as entertaining.

It’s not clear who invented the tureen, or where, but it probably emerged from France, a nation that loves its soups. The origin of the word has not been pinned down, but it could come from “terrine,” a covered container used for making the dish of the same name.

Tureens debuted in an era when soup was traditionally the first course on a menu. Ladling that soup from a fabulous-looking tureen set the tone for the evening: This is an elegant experience, and you and a select few others have been invited to share it. As dinner parties evolved, it became standard for hosts to offer two contrasting soups—for example, a dark-colored, heavy game meat soup as well as a lighter, more broth-like one. That meant dinner party hosts had to own at least two tureens, doubling the opportunities to dazzle their guests and show off their wealth.

Chinese export goose tureen. Image courtesy of Freeman’s and LiveAuctioneers

Some tureens were ornamented with animals, such as ducks, rabbits or deer. The appearance of a bird or beast on the outside might signal what food is inside, but not always. Freeman’s sold a circa 1760s Qianlong period Chinese export porcelain tureen shaped like a goose, but the odds are it never held a soup or other dish made from the bird. In all likelihood, it was meant purely as eye candy. Standing just over a foot high, it’s exquisitely painted and sculpted. The unknown artisans went to the trouble of articulating the goose’s wingtips and lifting them away from its body, and they explicitly modeled its tucked-in feet rather than painting them on or leaving them out entirely.

People love figurative tureens now as much as they did in the 18th century. Freeman’s sold the porcelain goose, which would have been a specialty item when new, for $50,000. “Novelty forms are always very popular because not as many are available,” says Ben Farina, head of Asian arts at Freeman’s. “For collectors, they’re not only rare forms, but a bit of sculpture. When they’re not being used, they can sit on a sideboard as decoration.”

The Chinese export porcelain goose tureen Freeman’s offered was single, but other examples dating to the same period have come with identical mates. Farina cannot confirm whether the goose once had a gander. “It’s not impossible. It would make some sense if it was a large service, but I don’t want to say,” he said. “Sometimes you do see pairs together. Whether they started life together is another question.”

Minton majolica bunny tureen. Image courtesy of Strawser Auction Group and LiveAuctioneers

Farina also suggested that animal-form tureens might recall the medieval practice of carrying whole roasted birds or wild boar into a dining hall to the delight of the guests. “I think these tureens were entertaining pieces, showpieces carried into the hall in front of the diners,” he says.

The talented staff at Minton, an English majolica producer active during Victorian times, created several pieces they called tureens, though the vessels don’t seem to be designed to hold soup. One of Minton’s most beloved pieces, a game tureen decorated with depictions of the heads of rabbits and ducks, has earned the nickname “the Bunny tureen.”

Minton majolica fish tureen. Image courtesy of Strawser Auction Group and LiveAuctioneers

Michael Strawser of Strawser Auction Group has handled five Bunny tureens in the last 30 years and auctioned one dating to 1878 for $22,000. Strawser also sold an equally rare Minton fish tureen, featuring a clever lemon-shaped handle, from 1876 for $15,500.

Minton certainly recognized how the tureen form could make a superlative canvas for its artisans. “Minton is famous for the crispness of the painting,” Strawser says. “With other companies, you see the painting run from one section to another. Here, there’s a lot of extra detail, such as showing the actual hair on the rabbits.”

When Jean Puiforcat tackled the tureen, he stripped it down while keeping its opulence. The fourth-generation French silversmith knew that an abundance of decorative flourishes on a piece of silver holloware could conceal any number of flaws. His circa 1925 silver tureen and stand is spectacular in its simplicity. He and his clients lived in the time of Art Deco, and he streamlined the serving piece accordingly. The luxury is in the quality of the craftsmanship—Puiforcat didn’t need to hide his silversmithing mistakes, because he didn’t make any—and in accents fashioned from semiprecious stones.

Puiforcat silver tureen and stand. Image courtesy of Millea Bros. and LiveAuctioneers

“This is a really fine example of what he’s known for. It’s iconic Art Deco, and it’s as much a sculptural object as a functional one,” says David Halpern of Millea Bros, speaking of the 1925 Puiforcat tureen and stand that the auction house sold for $35,000 in 2016. “It’s clean, but it’s not so reductionist that it doesn’t have intricacy to it.”

Halpern affirms that the fact of its being a tureen helped push the bidding to almost twice the high estimate of $12,000 to $18,000. “What part of a table service is going to be this large and complex?” he asks. “Tureens are very suited to being monumental and important.”

While he can’t confirm whether the winner of the Puiforcat tureen has since used it to serve guests, Halpern says people continue to buy and use tureens, even if they might not use them in precisely the same ways as past generations did: “I think they buy them because they’re beautiful, and they think, “Won’t it be fun to trot out at a dinner party?’ People are going to want to get together and socialize. They want to make a point of saying ‘We are together and we are celebrating.’”

Textile auction Feb. 18 features many Grenfell mats

Jasper52’s online auction of American quilts and textiles on Thursday, Feb. 18, features an amazing collection of nearly 90 vintage quilts as well as 42 handmade Grenfell mats from eastern Canada.

Grenfell mat or rug, 1930s, cotton and silk, 32½ x 42in. Estimate $5,500-$7,000. Jasper52 image

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Top jewelry designers’ work showcased in Jasper52 sale Feb. 16

Featuring iconic designs from Cartier, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels, Jasper52’s online fine jewelry auction will be conducted on Tuesday, Feb. 16. This special sale offers only the best in luxury jewelry, watches and fashion.

Van Cleef & Arpels Fleurette 18K gold ruby diamond double flower ring, size 4¾. Estimate: $16,000-$19,000. Jasper52 image

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Pop-up valentines send hearts soaring

NEW YORK – How do I love you? Let me count the ways … A handmade or printed valentine is one popular way to tell your spouse, parent, child or sweetheart of your feelings on Feb. 14. Evolving from religious devotionals and sung/spoken messages of love, sending cards on St. Valentine’s Day has been a tradition for centuries.

One of the earliest known valentines is in the collection of the British Museum in London and was sent by Catherine Mossday to a Mr. Brown. Published in 1797, the hand-colored card included a handwritten message from its sender that is sad and heartfelt, reiterating past requests for him to please visit her. One wonders how the relationship turned out or if Ms. Mossday found someone else to return her ardor.

A group of antique die-cut, pop-up and articulated cards made $70 + the buyer’s premium in December 2019 at Matthew Bullock Auctioneers. Photo courtesy of Matthew Bullock Auctioneers and LiveAuctioneers

There are endless variations of valentines, from lace-trimmed Victorian cards to die-cut and pop-up cards. Pop-ups, sometimes referred to as mechanical cards, have been perennially popular and were made in France, England and America to name a few. Clever use of paper, layering, string/wire or use of honeycombed tissue elements make these cards pop up. Their collectibility is largely based on the card’s elegance or whimsy. Most also have a footed base that allows them to stand up for easy display, adding to their appeal. They can easily be stored in books too. At the height of the Victorian era, collecting valentines was like a status symbol and eligible young women would have scrapbooks of valentines they had received that visitors could peruse and admire.

A group of antique pop-up Victorian Valentine die-cut cards took $65 + the buyer’s premium in December 2018 at Matthew Bullock Auctioneers. Photo courtesy of Matthew Bullock Auctioneers and LiveAuctioneers

Before the advent of affordable postage and expanded mail delivery in the 1840s in England and America, two countries where Valentine’s Day is avidly celebrated, sending valentines by mail was expensive and they were often hand-delivered instead. The penny stamp in England, for example, revolutionized the holiday and it’s estimated that some 40,000 cards were sent in 1840, the first year that letters of a modest weight could be mailed for a penny. The holiday soon became big business and today is a billions-dollar industry with cards a large part of that along with flowers, chocolates and gifts.

A group of 13 pop-up Valentines in shadow boxes realized $190 + the buyer’s premium at Litchfield Auctions in September 2020. Photo courtesy of Litchfield Auctions and LiveAuctioneers

The origins of Valentine’s Day cards is rife with urban legends and stories going back as far as the Roman Empire. A popular legend is that St. Valentine was in jail for performing weddings of local soldiers, where he is said to have fallen in love with his jailer’s daughter and sent her a love note signed “your Valentine.” This story is entertaining but given the literacy rate at the time and the odds he would be able to get pen and paper while in prison makes it seem a bit unlikely.

Many holidays are lamented for being overly commercial and Valentine’s Day became widely commercialized in the United States starting in the mid-1800s as paper became mass-produced and printing was cheap. Hallmark now rules the greeting card industry here but before the company’s debut in 1911, there were several small stores up and down the East Coast carrying fine valentines, mostly imported from Europe.

A collection of vintage Valentine cards, including pop-ups, sold for $105 + the buyer’s premium in October 2018 at Terri Peters & Associates Auction and Estate Marketing. Photo courtesy of Terri Peters & Associates Auction and Estate Marketing and LiveAuctioneers

Esther Howland in Worcester, Mass., was one of these early proponents, importing fancy paper, lace and other items from England to make valentines here. Tapping into her squad of lady friends to work, she ran a profitable cottage industry up until the 1860s making and selling valentines. Companies like Beistle in Shippensburg, Pa., also got into the greeting card business around 1900 and Valentine’s Day was soon a popular addition to the company’s product line.

A dozen pop-up Valentines fetched $60 + the buyer’s premium at Saco River Auction in January 2016. Photo courtesy of Saco River Auction and LiveAuctioneers

The more unique the card, either in sentiment or design, the more collectors will covet that particular example. The most popular depictions in pop-up Valentines are scenes of love or friendship. Commonly seen are fetching young ladies dressed to the nines, often standing in front of a beautiful house or in a garden, or images of couples dancing or being serenaded by Venetian gondoliers. From roses to lilies of the valley, flowers are prolific in valentine cards especially in early 1900s cards. These cards usually feature elegant young women in poofy gowns and frilly hats, often surrounded by flowers. Cherubs and angels are also a popular motif. Whimsical cards often feature people pictured on a bicycle or in a trolley car and the best examples are not rectangular cards but silhouetted and shaped cards cut into the forms of people or objects.

Sentiments vary from shy or cutesy to saccharine with messages like “Valentine, You ‘suit’ me well / from head to toes/ I think you’re swell” on a pop-up card showing a boy and girl enjoying a day at the beach to “I send you this Valentine to say I like you better every day.”

Daredevil leads superheroes in comic book sale Feb. 12

Jasper52 will sell 112 vintage comic books, many from the industry’s Silver Age (circa 1956-1970), in a no-reserve online auction on Friday, Feb. 12. Because this auction has no reserves, the high bidder on each lot will prevail.

Daredevil #16 VG-. Jasper52 image

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