The 64 Nolan lots consigned by Lady Mary Nolan were 100 per cent sold by value and by lot for a total of $1.57 million.
Buyers crammed the premises at Ormond Hall Melbourne for the first opportunity to choose from a wide number of Nolans, and early ones at that, since the big sale held for the family by Sotheby's in the mid 1990s. Estimates were also mostly tempting and despite cautious buying were sometimes one fifth of the value paid.
The top priced Nolan was as per estimate, was the wool tapestry Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (Lot 38 ) which made $110,000 hammer, (estimates $50,000 to $80,000,)or $134,750 with BP.
This went to Sydney dealer Mr Michael Nagy who was a big buyer at Bonhams sale of the Grundy collection. Asked where the tapestry, woven in Portugal, was going, Mr Nagy said he was going to throw it on his bed.
The works ranged from near total abstracts to precise landscapes and while all were wanted, including the cubist period, the strongest shows were made by the more realistic works, led by Girl and Dog, Kiata, Wimmera (Lot 25 ) at the peculiar hammer price of $87,500 ($106,750) compared with estimates of $60,000 to $80,000. It peculiarly evoked the movie The Wizard of Oz released about the same time, except the yellow brick road is grey.
The bids came from all directions with phone, internet and room buyers all successful and slowed only slightly by the internet purchasing and a brief lack of screen visuals.
The 48 lot offering from mixed vendors of Important Australian Art was 63 per cent sold by lot and 73 per cent by value for a total IBP of $2,627,820
The sale was helped by the purchase for $1.22 million of Arthur Streeton's Between the Lights Princes Bridge (Lot 129 ) by Ms Erica Drew, (paddle number 650) for a private collector.
The associated paddle number 652 secured Charles Meere's Australian Beach Pattern (Lot 120 ) for $427,000.
Ms Drew said she had been acting as a bidding agent for only six months and was thoroughly enjoying it.
The hammer for the Streeton was right on the lower estimate of $1 million but the work had been considered potentially difficult to sell because of the disdain for the traditional and the reluctance to spend in the current pre-election lull, especially at the top end of the market.
It is also a dark late afternoon view of the Melbourne landmark.
The joyful Meere, however, soared above its estimates, like the volley ball pictured within it. The hammer price of $350,000 compared with the estimate of $300,000 to $500,000, and the final price far exceeded the $365,500 paid for the large oil on canvas in 1999.
The image has turned up in different contexts in recent times, both on canvas and in print.
Its latest exposure may have been partly due to the promotion for the coming Australians exhibition at the Royal Academy, in which it will be included.
London's Financial Times illustrated the work in colour in a preview of the exhibition, which is being held under the auspices of the National Gallery of Australia.
The room thinned out a little after the Nolans had been sold, and the more money laden second half of the sale began well with $45,950 including buyers premium paid by Melbourne dealer Rob Gould for one of James Wardell Power's best works, Abstract Figure, (Lot 101 ) the $45,000 hammer being well above the $30,000 to $40,000 estimates.
Interest in Power must be have been lifted by the recent new hang at the Art Gallery of NSW in which he features prominently.
He was the most forward Australian artist in the 1930s but not in Sydney so therefore was not in the Sydney Moderns exhibition.
Had he shown in Sydney instead of in Paris in 1932, the gum tree school might well have been demolished.
The Power Institute at the University of NSW lately had an exhibition of his work and published a book on them, and has loaned some to the AGNSW.
The Bonhams sale included two other Powers which also sold well.
Bessie Davidson's Small Girl with a Parrot (Lot 110 ) did not enjoy quite the same response from exposure in another public gallery show which is grabbing attention.
Despite Australian Impressionists in France in the National Gallery of Victoria the work failed to sell at a best bid of $175,000.
The estimate appeared a little rich in the current malaise but it showed much less interest in one of those two favourite subjects of the 1989s boom, little girls and ladies in long dresses. The Davidson showed a little girl was in a pink dress.
A woman in a pretty white dress was the subject of B.E. Minns's watercolour Woman by the Harbour (Lot 123 ) of 1916. She appeared un-alluring at $15,000 to $20,000 and the best bid was at $10,000.
Surely this cannot be the same work as the work titled Study of a Lady Seated in Edwardian Dress with Sydney Harbour in the Background at the Alison Hattersley sale by Goodmans in November 2000 and which made $75,000. That sale was extremely buoyant sale. But the work that made the money is not displayed in the catalogue.
Several works from this Hattersley collection have recently appeared at auction in the latest round of sales including the J. J. Hilder Brisbane Central Railway Station illustrated in the Australian Art Sales Digest after its auction by Theodore Bruce and Co. in Sydney..
If there were any doubts that the Australian Impressionist market was still under pressure it was Tall Timber (Lot 128 ) by Hans Heysen. The watercolour with an estimate of $35,000 to $45,000 was felled with a bid of $29,000.
It had sold for $48,000 hammer at Sotheby's in April, 1987.
The sale's most valuable traditional, the Streeton, sold despite the belching smoke of ships and chimneys. Auctioneer Mr Mark Fraser, who is much less more reticent in his use of the term, than fellow Bonhams auctioneer James Hendy, described it as iconic.
Although well short of the $1.5 million top estimate, a chef d'ouevre from the artist's most acclaimed period (it is dated 1888) it is very different atmospherically than Golden Summers and the other gold and blue paintings which were in demand in the 1980s.
Most of these have gone into permanent collections, and as Ms Drew, points out, paintings with a similar industrial appeal, like the French Impressionist paintings of railway stations, were atmospherically similar.
Another Streeton also sold well at $140,000 hammer. With the premium Midday Rest (Lot 115 ) which also showed tall timbers but stockmen having a picnic below them, made well over the estimate of $90,000 to $120,000. It was again a vertical picture (considered to be more difficult to hang ) but a Streeton, soon to be free of the 50 year post-death first free resale rule of the droit de suite.
