The 330-lot sale was aimed at the market’s middle ground and yielded a hammer-total of €150,000 (£94,000). If bidding was largely unspectacular, Camard claimed record prices for an ensemble of bottles by Jacques and Danièle Ruelland – led by €3800 (£2400) for this 19in (47cm) tall, tapering, green-enamelled stoneware bouteille cornet, pictured bottom right.
Works by Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat were also in demand: his curious stoneware sculpture, middle right, portraying “a fruit devoured by an animal”, with a monkey forming the handle, 81/4in (21cm) tall, doubled hopes on €7000 (£4400); and his
spinning-top vase, 83/4in (22cm) tall, with bull’s blood enamel, sold over estimate for €5000 (£3100).
An enamelled brown stoneware ovoid vase (c.1885), top right, by Ernst Chaplet (1835-1909), with incised decor of a chunky sower in clogs, framed by blossom, 153/4in (40cm) tall, tripled estimate on €9900 (£6200).
Elsewhere, a pair of candleholders by Georges Jouve (c.1950), in the form of turbanned blackamoors in black and white faience, 20in (50cm) tall, led Cornette de St-Cyr’s Ceramics 1950-2000 sale on January 27 with a mid-estimate €5000 (£3100).
Cracking the 20th century ceramics
FRANCE: Camard reported “strong progress” in demand among trade and private buyers for 20th century ceramics last year. They returned to the field this year when they offered a “panorama of 100 years of history of ceramics” at Drouot on January 25.
