Fine art accounted for roughly half the $1.22 hammer which was double the $650,000 low estimate and equal to $1.533 million with premium.
The sale, which captured media attention benefited from coming from a well respected “one-owner” source, a couple with a medical practice in Penrith. Only 16 lots were unsold of the 689 offered.
Lawson's cleared more than 200 lots of traditional paintings around estimates which were mostly made at fair market value.
Most would have struggled to find buyers at any price in today's mostly contemporary and modern saleroom.
There for the ivory, which was stated to have been purchased before 1974 and therefore relatively free to be sold elsewhere, the Chinese community appeared also to take spontaneously to some of the fine and decorative art in the room and give a few of the flower pieces, which dominated the sale, a nudge along to, as well as the work of Helen Baldwin, rarely seen at auction. The catalogue had 20 of her works
Baldwin, lives in the Blue Mountains and paints watercolours of Central Australia which she visits for lengthy periods each year. A student of East Sydney Technical College, she also does petit point tapestry. She exhibited at Prouds in 1980-81.
Her largely highly illustrative work sold for up to $2400 ($3000 IBP) which was given for lot 553 an untitled painting of an Aboriginal camp.
Cayley's prices were offered at low estimates, which they managed to exceed considerably thanks to buying by agents for, or members of a small group of sharply competitive collectors who have been spurred on or involved in a series of new publications on the artist.
Paul Bisby and Bob Lavigne were the public face of this boom with Bisby seemingly finding a new buyer after the departure of media buff Trevor Kennedy whose Australiana collection reportedly has been acquired by a collector in Singapore.
The Cayley's went in these directions for $4750, $3250, $2200 and $4500 hammer against estimates of only $200 to $400 for all but one, the colourful rainbow lorikeets, (lot 98), which made the second highest price at $3250 ($3989 IBP) and were estimated to make the highest at $2500 to $3500.
Estimates exclude buyers premium which add 25 per cent including GST (22.73 percent excluding GST) to the hammer price, which in this instance were arrived at despite the excitement generated by the appearance of examples at a Davidsons sale in February.
Prices of paintings by John Allcot (1882-1971) tend to be shaped by the name of the ships the maritime artist painted and Sirius being one of the most famous in Australia's history, Sirius Rounding Bradley's Head (lot 125) sold for $7500 ($9205 IBP) against $2000 to $4000, despite being obviously out of period.
Allcot's Loch Vennachar (lot 126) made $5500 (est. $1500 to $2000) and a simply untitled painting of Sydney Harbour $3250 against and estimate of $1500 to $2200.
Some of the collectors who were buying in the 1970s still have their sea legs including ex media magnate John Hannan. The businessman is evidently still buying, but was represented in the room only by an agent. Hannan evidently has big plans for rehousing the collection.
Other paintings by second rank traditionals for whom the Cammacks saved several examples from the culture bin of art history did not fare so well, with mixed results usually not far either way from their estimates.
Overseas patches of water (not usually so popular) were popular depending on how vivid they were. The very colourful The Waiting Gondola Venice (Lot 414 ) by French artist Antoine Bouvard making $10,500 (est. $8000 to $10,000) to a phone bidder and Hammersmith Bridge by Will Ashton (Lot 418 ) going for $4500 (est. $4000 to $6000).
Saleroom habitués were wondering where all these works by second-raters like Ashton, Jan de Leener and Ernest Buckmaster had gone and the 689 lot catalogue provided the answer. Works by the better known and respected Impressionists had been snapped up by institutions.
The paintings disappeared together with Victorian brown furniture which can only be offered confidently in such one owner sales as the Cammacks.
The results provide welcome relief for those engaged in the lower end of the traditional market as it is a great source of de-cluttering with few obvious places to go as older owners downsize and inheritors put the grandfather chairs with which these paintings in richly carved or moulded rococo frames go, into the garage.
Auctioneer Martin Farrah successfully hectored some of the Chinese buyers into this world.
The collection harked back to the traditionals in heavy representation of secondary works that might have appeared at sales in the 1970s, their hey day. The late Bill Ellenden who was prospering then, delighted in selling the work of Albert Sherman and the sale had 23 works by this master, on whom Mr Cammack had written and published a book.
One wit once suggested the Australian art market be divided into BC and AD - before Cornes and after Don (Cornes) due to Cornes' influence in the market in the 1980s.
The history of art in Sydney might also be divided into Sherman I and Sherman II – the age when people bought Shermans and the age Gene Sherman's artist's lead the pack and were favoured by academia following exposure at of the most powerful exhibiting gallery in Sydney.
In between sneezes brought on by the flower display – the biggest show of the genre for years - old timers must have thought they were in a time warp.
Albert Sherman, who should have owned the sale as he was the Cammack favourite, sold mostly for lower five figure sums ($2000 to $4000) often at the lower estimate, or under the low estimate.
The large oil on board Native Flowers, (Lot 511 ) sold for $12,000 against the estimate of $7000 to $10,000 and slightly smaller Still Life -Vase of Flowers (Lot 512 ) went for $7000 (est. $8000 to $12,000). Norman Lindsay's large oil The Introduction (Lot 534 ) was sold by repute to an old timer in this field for $115,000 (or $141,136 IBP) (est. $120,000 to $150,000.)
It made $63,000 ($73,350 with premium) when it last came up at Sotheby's in Melbourne in 2003 which was clearly a low point in this market.
The auction gave a pleasant shine to the bottom end of the market where people obviously have money to spend rather than the middle market where the middle classes are said to be hurting.
Nora Heysen's Flowers in a Glass was passed in at $13,000 against hopes of $20,000 to $30,000 whereas a work by another woman artist, Margaret Olley, romped away..
The small to medium sized paintings offered in the 687 lot sale were very different to the large sized works usually exhibited in the Menzies Art Brands', (of which Lawson's is an associate) Kensington, Sydney auction rooms
In keeping with the support for horse groups in the paintings by artists such as William Hopkins, the Lladro equestrian group of of a fox hunting party led by Don Quixote (lot 640) topped out at $4295. The estimate was $1200 to $1800.
"Pity it's not ivory", said Farrah of a piece from this Spanish factory, which had an ivory sheen.
The sale produced the inevitable high spots, the passion for ivory being reflected in the almost exultant ear shattering “YUS” yelled by one woman when she secured a piece.
An Indian ivory tusk carved with mythological scenes (Lot 520) made $9000 against $1500 to $3000 estimates and a group of bears playing on a tree stump thought to be worth $2000 to $3000 sold for $16,000.
But the prize piece was a cabbage - 42 cm long - with children on it (lot 549), which sold for $20,000 hammer ($24,546 with premium).
The cabbage being among the most dense-headed of vegetables, it left saleroom habitués wondering what was going on in them.
