While its main activities take place at its headquarters in Lambertville, New Jersey, Rago Auctions also maintains a showroom in Chelsea, one of Manhattan's most important art gallery neighborhoods. Considering its prime location, the first-floor gallery at 501 W 20th Street is usually dedicated to high-profile paintings or contemporary photography, but recently it has also been showcasing its Contemporary Glass Sale coming up on September 19th, which partner Suzanne Perrault says is an indication of the work's importance.
Drawn from the private collections of three major glass art enthusiasts, the New York preview exhibition highlighted works that originated in the collection of Harry Gaines, an early and fervent supporter of the work of Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, with prime pieces by the couple included in the upcoming sale. The Palmer collection, which includes signature Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra pieces, as well as the extensive Richart Marquis works, is also going up for sale tomorrow (though the work is available for in-person viewing only in California at the Rago-affiliate LAMA: LA Modern). For the preview exhibition running for two weeks before the September 19 auction, glass work was set up adjacent to canvases in the Post War Contemporary Art sale, offering intriguing correspondences and contrasts.
The Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet caught up with Perrault to ask about the upcoming sale of over 150 works by artists including Dan Dailey, Karen LaMonte, Richard Marquis, William Morris, Bertil Vallien, Michael Glancy, František Vízner, and Judith Schaechter, which she says represents a high-water mark for Rago's glass sales.
Glass Quarterly Hot Sheet: You mentioned this is perhaps your best glass sale ever? Is it the individual works that are on sale that make you say that, the collections, their breadth, or the overall quality of the auctioned work that inspired such a superlative description?
Suzanne Perrault: All of those things. I don’t know that we’ve ever had such a large sale with so many strong works. This is very much a group effort: my colleague Leon Benrimon in Palm Beach is responsible for bringing in the Harry Gaines collection (with all the cast works), and Brent Lewis, senior specialist at LAMA, brought in the California collection which includes almost all the Marquis’.
Glass: The contemporary art gallery world is struggling, according to newspaper articles. Does this downturn apply as well to the secondary market for glass or does it rise and fall by its own timing? Perrault: The art market is certainly readjusting to levels before the Covid bubble, during which collectors had plenty of time to look at their walls, and more money to spend. There was also a lot of speculative buying of artworks, especially from Asia, which has considerably cooled off over the last eight-to-ten months. So I don’t know that the art world is struggling per se—it’s just less excited right now.
Glass: What can you share about market trends you are seeing in terms of pricing and interest levels?
Perrault: The secondary market for glass was definitely part of that wild ride, but there are different factors at play here. The collecting population of many decorative arts is aging and moving to smaller quarters. They keep the pieces they like best and divest the rest. There are many collections built in the 1970s-2010s which have been coming to market over the past few years. Younger generations don’t seem to have the collecting bug their parents and grandparents had, for many reasons: they often don’t have the resources as new glass is now very, very expensive; they might not care as much about traveling to meet artists and getting to know other collectors; and they might just be interested in something more germane to their upbringing and culture, like Pokemon cards or Magic the Gathering; also prints and paintings don’t take up as much real estate as crafts. All that said, there are always new names I spy bidding with us on glass, perhaps discovering auctions as a viable option to purchase fine works, often for less.
Glass: What can you tell people about the upcoming auction on September 19?
Perrault: I think this is a world-class offering of glass works which is worthy of anyone just taking a look, to see what’s out there. For anyone feeling acquisitive, there’s always the possibility of getting a good deal.
IF YOU GO:
"Contemporary Glass Sale"
September 19, 2025, 11 AM
Rago Auctions
Lambertville, New Jersey
Email: info@ragoarts.com
Telephone: 609 397 9374
Website