Kinsky (28% buyer’s premium) in Vienna offered a rare, 6in (15cm) high vase by Moser from this period in their sale of December 1-3. The first owner of the blue and green glazed vase with impressed decoration was the Austrian industrialist Fritz Wärndorfer.
Soon afterwards, alongside Moser and Josef Hoffmann, he was one of the founding members of the Wiener Werkstätte, the famous arts and crafts cooperative workshop.
In 1913, Wärndorfer went bankrupt and emigrated to the US the following year. One of the pieces he took with him was the vase in the Vienna sale. After his death, it belonged to an American collector, who sold it to a British counterpart in 1985.
This time, it changed hands for a mid-estimate €46,000 (£41,820). According to Kinsky, that is the highest auction price for a piece of Moser ceramics.
