Charles Catteau for Boch Keramis

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Charles Catteau was one of the best potters of the Art Déco period. He did all his work in the service of the Manufacture Boch Frères Keramis in La Louvière, Belgium. His vast output includes no less than 550 shapes and 2300 decorations.

At auction, collections of works by Catteau are attracting an increasing attention. In one of my first blog previews, I pointed out a set of 800 pieces submitted by Massol in Paris on 21 and 22 February 2008. The highest price, 30 K € excluding fees, had been brought on sandstone vases decorated with animals.

The sale of Pierre Bergé et Associés in Brussels will last two days, June 6 and 7, and includes 555 ceramics of Catteau. The provenance is exceptional, as this collection was assembled by the President of the Fondation Charles Catteau during the ten years he has devoted to preparing the catalogue raisonné of the artist.

The masterpiece of the sale, estimated 140 K €, is a large vase 49 cm high in three colors, probably unique, decorated with a continuous circular frieze of six birds of prey in flight. The body half hidden by the strong beaked head is extended to the top of the vase by very long linear wings , and down by the claws and the tail. The vase is ovoid with a small neck.

This vase was made in 1924, a key period of the work of Catteau, who received a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris in 1925.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

Almost all of the lots remained well below the low estimate. Many have not been sold.

It is unfortunate, but this result is very interesting. It is not sufficient to publish a study or a catalog to make a score, even when the very objects that have made this study are being sold.

The art market is subtle. In my theme, the best expert is the buyer. New information made public by another author are not new to him.

Regarding the vase with raptors, which is one of the unsold, I venture a hypothesis not verifiable, the same as I did for the Picasso of the Saint-Laurent - Bergé collection. By putting a high estimate compared to the results previously recorded on the market, the seller may have wanted to keep it, while attracting the attention of the media on the sale with the support of this exceptional piece.

[Wouter Jacobs]

There was ofcourse also the problem of the big quantity in the sale. People couldn't buy everything, had to make choices, resulting in fewer bids, lower prices. It was a good sale for the collectors though....