Last day to place
intial bids:
April 20, 2001

Click on the image to enlarge Lot 3 Outstanding and rare Baccarat antique seven-flower bouquet paperweight. Containing a central yellow pompon comprised of numerous c-shaped petals, with a central emerald and white arrow point and ruby star complex cane. The airy quality of the pompon is complemented by the flatter, more graphically styled flowers surrounding it. Above the pompon is a cluster of three robin's-egg blue forget-me-nots, each with a white stardust and turquoise bull's eye. Then, three fantasy flowers, all of which exhibit a ruffled edge, two with boldly designed arrow canes, in blue, white, red, each with a white stardust bull's-eye cane. The flowers are on entwined stems with fifteen green leaves among them. A superimposed "X" design in the stem is also considered typical of Baccarat. (See, p 15, Antique French Paperweights and Related Objects.) The leaves surrounding the forget-me-nots are of a brighter green than the bouquet's others and show fine detail, and perhaps suggest a committee of lampworkers, all contributing their best floral feature. The arrangement floats above a clear star-cut ground, uncommon with thirty-two rays. (See, color plate 58, Presse Papiers de Cristal-Panorama des Collections Francaises, and, no. 45, Baccarat: Paperweights and Related Glass 1820-1860.) Diameter 2 15/16". $15,000-20,000

Click on the image to enlarge Lot 4 Clichy antique interlaced trefoil garlands paperweight, in pink, green, lavender, white, and indigo, looped around six spaced complex canes. The canes are each unique and complex, and include a central cross cane, moss cane, and the symbol of this short-lived French factory; one pink and green rose cane. The design rests on clear, star-cut ground; five and one facets. "The use of this rose may have been inspired by the Jacobites, who used a glass ornamented with a white rose when drinking a toast to the Pretender." -Old Glass Paperweights. "The magnetic attraction of fine antique French paperweights lies in their intrinsic beauty, as works of art, in their design, in their composition and colors more than in the technical expertise of the glass artists who made them." -A Garland of Weights. Diameter 3 1/4". $4250-5000

Click on the image to enlarge Lot 5 Antique, likely Bacchus, close packed millefiori paperweight, comprised of a central group of complex millefiori, encircled by three concentric rings of canes, in a white stave basket which extends all the way to the bottom of the paperweight. In some of its features, it appears an all over typical Bacchus design, in its use of white glass as a color, and in the "hollow" style of canes. Included amongst assorted cog, star and flower canes, however, is an unusual triangular cane that somewhat resembles a fortress cane, (a Baccarat trademark) or even a Jerusalem cross cane, (of Saint Louis). "In England, the beginning of the classic period can be marked by the 1848 date which appears in many paperweights and inkwells from Whitefriars... Undated paperweights from the Bacchus factory of Birmingham are listed in exhibitions in 1848 and 1849... These were said to have been produced to rival Bohemian paperweights that had been flooding the English market." - Paperweights: 'Flowers Which Clothe the Meadows.' "Comparisons are odious." -John Fortesque. Diameter 3 1/16". $9000-11,000