Jules Barbe English Cameo vase

Dudley Browne, the expert in charge of the Glass & Lamp division at James D. Julia, Inc., drives thousands and thousands of miles each year to gather the items that are consigned to the sale.  This year he was lucky to get some great English Cameo glass.  It appeared to be one private collection because of the high quality of the offerings, but accordingly to Dudley, the English glass came in in dribs and drabs from various consignors.  The quality was high and the estimates reasonable, so there was real action and strong prices resulted.    That was a big surprise to me because English Cameo Glass has been relatively weak for the last 30 years.  It seemed only the highest quality pieces, such as those by George or Thomas Woodall, brought very strong prices.

I really know my glass but wasn’t familiar with the first lot of English Cameo Glass, a vase by Jules Barbe.  Apparently the bidders were, as the vase was estimated at $8-12,000 and sold for $21,500 + 15% premium.  The action was mainly from the telephones, but several in-house bidders participated.  Several English Cameo lamps followed, with most exceeding the high estimate and one beauty with an amethyst background (so rare that I’ve never seen it before) selling for almost twice the high estimate at $15,000 + premium.

That was followed by a large grouping of vases, a basket and perfumes.   Most sold within or above their estimates, with one exceptional Webb vase, white on blue with a dragonfly, almost doubling its high estimate, realizing $11,250 + premium.

Tomorrow I’ll cover the French Cameo glass at the same auction.

Thanks to my son, Billy, for encouraging me to start a blog.    I hope to make it interesting with some behind-the-scenes information, not generally available.

James D. Julia, Inc. held their bi-annual Glass and Lamps auction this past Friday and Saturday in Fairfield, Maine.   They had the largest in-house crowd they’ve had in years for this type of auction.  It was a 7 hour drive to get there.  I’m not a kid any more, so that part was not fun, but New England is a beautiful part of the country, so that’s certainly a plus.  The weather in the northeast has been pretty rotten this spring with lots of clouds and rain and this weekend was no exception.

Auctions have changed a lot in the 30+ years that I’ve attended.  They used to be more diverse and frankly, entertaining.  Communication was much more difficult then, so people came from far and wide to view the objects in person and have an evening’s entertainment.  Saturday night was a big night for auctions because of the entertainment value.  Today with the Internet, email, and all manner of electronic communication, it’s not necessary to go in person.  You can get sufficient information, all electronically, to make intelligent decisions to bid at an auction.  So it was surprising and nice to see a good crowd.  Some people came from quite a distance, with one couple from Seattle and two gentlemen from Israel.  Julia’s really encourages buyers to come in person, so they offer free food and drink (not alcohol) and $100 toward meals and hotels if the buyer spends more than $5000.  I don’t know of other auction houses that go to such lengths.  They’re smart to do it.

Dudley Browne is the expert in charge of the Lamps and Glass division.  He was hoping the sale would realize $1.5 million before seller’s premium, but the sale realized a bit over $1.7 million, so he and Jim Julia were pleased.  Dudley advised me that today, Monday, was a busy day with offers coming in for many of the items that didn’t sell.  Ultimately that will raise the total sales for the auction.

More tomorrow on the specifics of the auction.