A vase from the Gilroy Museum fetched four times the price
appraisers expected at a New York City auction and has garnered
$37,500 to fund the museum as a result.
A vase from the Gilroy Museum fetched four times the price appraisers expected at a New York City auction and has garnered $37,500 to fund the museum as a result.
Officials at Doyle New York’s expected an ornate, ivory-colored vase bearing a bust-length portrait of former Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm II to be sold for about $15,000, but collectors calling from both coasts drove the price up to $46,000, according to an auction house press release detailing the Feb. 11 event. The auction house will take a cut of the final price and give the rest to the City of Gilroy.
A Gilroyan donated the century-old piece to the museum in 1975, and, 25 years later, with the donor’s blessing, officials decided to hawk the historically irrelevant piece as part of a house-cleaning effort that would kick-start Gilroy’s first-ever Museum Endowment Trust Fund.
Auctioning off the delicate vase of milk-and-honey hues and subtle green accents seemed like an increasingly good idea as layoffs stripped the museum of its only two employees Feb. 1. Before she left the city as an employee and returned as a volunteer along with her assistant, Tom Howard, former Recreation Coordinator Susan Voss played a key role in selecting Doyle and arranging the auction. Since her and Howard’s departure, other volunteers have also stepped up to keep the museum on Fifth Street open nine days a month, down from 17, but Wilhelm’s winnings will be a welcomed shot in the arm, said volunteer and Historical Society Chair Connie Rogers, whose commission will advise the city on spending the nascent trust fund when that time comes.
“When we came up with the idea to auction off the vase, we didn’t see the city’s current financial crisis coming, but we did know the museum was at the bottom of the council’s priority list,” Rogers said.
To preserve the building and its contents, the city still pays electricity, water and air conditioning costs and maintains its facade, but money for special exhibits and events or artifact purchases must come from private donations or the sale of donations, as in this case.
“It was so exciting. We were gathered around the computer and could see the bids as they came in, but when it opened at $12,000, nothing happened for a minute, and my heart just sank. I thought ‘Nobody wants our vase!'” Rogers said. “But when it got all the way up to $40,000, we were screaming and yelling.”
The city, which paid $2,000 to ship the fragile, 44-inch piece to Manhattan, will keep $37,500 after the auction house takes its end and settles up with the winning bidder, Rogers said.
“Doyle explained it all in the fine print of their bid form,” Rogers said. “We’re not complaining. We’re ecstatic. This is fabulous.”
A Doyle’s media representative did not immediately return messages seeking price clarification Tuesday morning. A company press release detailed the “fine and decorative arts reflecting the opulence of the Belle Epoque” such as art glass, porcelain, silver, marble statues, bronzes, ivories, clocks, chandeliers, rugs, paintings and a selection of Tiffany Studios articles that sold for a total of $1,188,611.
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