The cabinet, with an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000 sold to Mr John Squarcini, a developer from West Perth who said he would be placing it in the foyer of one of his premium apartment projects.
The purchase therefore represents a rare known return by buyers from the prosperous mining state to the market in international masters, our special correspondent writes. It was not a van Gogh price but French cabinetmakers however fine or brilliant seldom make that kind of money.
The lacquer and ormolu mounted, satinwood amaranth and parquetry hauter d'appui (a cabinet with adjustable height) was made by the celebrated ebeniste August Alfred Beurdeley the 1867 Great Exhibition of Paris.
Mr Sartoni said that he had been informed the cabinet had been consigned by a WA vendor but he had not been able to establish that vendor's identity. A few treasures had entered Perth collections during the last boom in the West in the 1980s. Its return to the West will be welcomed by members of the antique and art trade who had despaired at the seeming lack of interest by current run of entrepreneurs and mining magnates there in international masters.
No new collectors have emerged in the international saleroom to match the buyers of yesteryear, Mr Alan Bond and the late Mr Robert Holmes a Court with their multi-million dollar purchases of French Impressionists.
Mr Squarcini, who was in the room, had to battle with five telephone bidders to secure the cabinet. These bidders were believed to be from London. Bonhams appeared to have been ultra-conservative in its estimates and very successful in beating down reserves to show that the consignments were really for sale.
Any trade under bidders in London or New York or Paris probably would have had an eye to placing the piece in one of the many big new apartments being purchased by mainland and offshore Chinese, who also appeared to be represented in room bidding by local agents. The door panels are described as "Chinese" in the drawings for the piece. The taste expressed in the cabinet is also now on the rise again in Turkey where it goes well with Ottoman paintings now in a boom cycle.
This catalogue cover lot was the star offering of an auction which grossed $985,000 including buyers premium. This was just above the lower estimate of $981,000 but well short of the upper estimate of $1.46 million. These represented 54 per cent by lot and 66 per cent by value.
Marginally disappointing, the result may have been affected by recent $2 million plus spending at the Cook-Hamil end-of-partnership dispersal by Mossgreen earlier in the month.
With many lower class lots of Chinese arts going unsold it also underlined a shift by buyers for the Chinese market from trawling to fishing for lots for resale in overseas salerooms.
A firming in Ottoman taste was also reflected in the interest in a late 19th century Louis XVI style ormolu-mounted amaranth, sycamore and parquetry breakfront commode (Lot 213 ) after a model by another earlier great ébéniste Jean Henri Riesener. The hammer price of $32,000 ($38,400 IBP) compared with estimates of $8000 to $12,000.
A French late 19th century Louis XV style satinwood, marquetry and gilt bronze mounted side cabinet (Lot 206 ) also tripled its estimate to sell for a hammer price of $25,000 ($30,000 IBP) against the expected $6000 to $8000.
The star Chinese lot was a 19th century table screen (Lot 180 ) which tickled several buyers' fancy. It made $28,000 ($33,600 IBP) against an estimate of $3000 to $5000 with bidding from both the phones (six were reserved for the lot) and the room. The decoration of pheasants and peonies in a rocky landscape was made of feathers.
A minimalist Japanese six fold screen (Lot 184 ) from the late Meiji period underlined the difference in taste between the two civilisations when it was passed in at a top bid of $1900 against estimates of $3000 to $5000. The decoration was irises on a gold background.
All a far cry from the Van Gogh Irises with which Mr Alan Bond had once set a world record for any painting with money borrowed from Sotheby's.
The Victorian antique silver found buyers at prices which rarely strayed far from the estimates despite the highly confusing catalogue weights which seemed to be a cross between troy and metric. Bonhams Australia managing director Mr James Hendy said that this was due to a computer glitch with the conversion software.
Buyers who had not seen the saleroom notices or the amended weights on the Internet could have been in for modestly pleasant surprises or vice versa.
A silver hot water kettle and stand, (Lot 234 ) was catalogued at 136 oz and 2600grms but amended in the saleroom notice to 88 oz and 2753 grams.
The star of this small section was a "George II silver coffee pot" (Lot 232 ) which rose above its $1800 to $2500 estimate to make $5000 hammer ( $6000 IBP) because, in the eye of one beholder, it had the look of a beer jug.
Photographed without its pendulum an eight day gilt bronze marble portico clock (Lot 208 ) might have been assumed not to have had one, although Mr Hendy explained from the rostrum that it had.
The clock, estimated at $3000 to $4000 was unsold at $2500.
Ivories of Japanese, Chinese and French origins seldom tinkled as an irrational concern for long dead elephants seemed to take hold.
A Circle of Sir Godfrey Knellor (sic) (Lot 302 ) was another throw back to the pre-minimalist boom times, having the provenance of the Barry Byrne collection sold at Christie's in July 1992 and placed there, unacknowledged by then London/Paris-based Mr Robert Jones, an exhibitor at London and Paris antique fairs in those times.
The portrait probably related to <i>Sir Godfrey Kneller</i>, a leading portrait painter of the late 17th century. But let he who is without typographical sin and 24 hour deadlines be the last to throw stones at those with six monthly deadlines.
It sold for $12,000 IBP, just about what was expected. The writer chanced coincidentally upon Mr Jones on the Eastern Suburbs railway shortly after the auction to be told that he had now returned to Australia and had raised his shingle as a private consultant and valuer again in Double Bay.