It specialised in Art Nouveau/Jugendstil decorative ceramics of sinuous form decorated with elaborate, sometimes fantastical, fauna, flora and figures often reminiscent of the style of Alphonse Mucha.
The Morphy Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) December 8-10 Fine and Decorative Arts sale in Denver, Pennsylvania, opened with a selection of 121 lots of Amphora pottery.
Among its best-sellers was a 21½in (51.5cm) vase forming a classic embodiment of the Amphora interpretation of Art Nouveau, featuring a winged dragon coiled snakelike around the body and neck of the vase and shown spitting out round ‘coins’ from its mouth. The vase bears the RStK and an oval Amphora mark and is impressed 699-41 and 1153. It features in the Amphora publication Monsters and Maidens: Collector’s Edition by Byron Vreeland.
Estimated at $18,000-24,000, the vase ended up selling for $44,000 (£33,845).
Bats, berries, leaves and trees
Amphora bat vase – $38,000 (£29,230) at Morphy Auctions.
Also selling well above its $10,000-15,000 guide at $38,000 (£29,230) was a 21in (53cm) high bottle-shaped vase applied to the top of the neck with a reticulated design of bats and berries and with leaves and trees to the body.
Marked with a crown, an oval Amphora mark and oval Austria mark and impressed 668-41, it is similar to examples in Monsters and Maidens and in Ceramics From the House of Amphora (1890-1915) by Richard Scott.
A slender 17½in (44cm) high elongated jug by Paul Dachsel, a notable Amphora designer, covered in dripping green glazes with a PD mark and impressed 1046-11, was another of the high-flyers. It sold for $20,500 (£15,770) against predictions of $12,000-18,000.
