Six pieces of cameo glass by Daum Frères attracted wide attention with, rather unusually these days, private collectors being beaten by the trade. The five lots sold were divided up between one London dealer and two provincial ones and went well above conservative estimates, totalling £9900 against top expectations of £5700.
Top-seller was a 10in (25cm) tall vase. In the Falling Maple Leaf pattern overlaid and acid etched with elliptical rim and signed in the cameo, the 10in (25cm) tall vase doubled the lower estimate to sell at £3000.
Trebling top hopes was an 8in (20cm) vase of similar shape, etched and enamelled with rosehips. Bearing the cameo mark Daum Nancy and the Cross of Lorraine it sold at £2400.
A more unusual shape was a square-section goblet in the Blackberry pattern. Also bearing the Daum Nancy mark and Cross of Lorraine, the 4in (9.5cm) piece doubled the estimate at £1500.
Murano wares
For about a thousand years before the Daum family established its Nancy factory, the glass makers of Murano were catering for contemporaneous tastes which, today, often means their wares are associated with gaudy tourist souvenirs.
Among the more upmarket designers on the Venetian island today is Alessandro Barbaro, whose client list includes Elton John, Madonna and an Arabian princess for whom he created a 6ft (1.83m) tall crystal and gold tree with birds in its branches.
Buyers of the small collection at Cheffins were on more constricted budgets, but all nine signed items sold to bidders including a UK dealer and private buyers from Georgia and Italy.
Prices ranged from a mid-estimate £400 for a 17in (44cm) tall stylised model of a horse’s head to the double-estimate £1400 for an 18in (44cm) Picasso-inspired, be-hatted glass head with aventurine inclusions.
