Two decades after her death, works by a Viennese ceramicist beloved by connoisseurs of the form are gaining in the market, and were the subject of a white-glove auction at Phillips New York this month.

On December 11, the auctioneer held “Moved by Beauty,” featuring 71 lots from three decades of the practice of Lucie Rie, totaling $3.2 million. It was the most comprehensive sale of Rie’s work in America to date.

Rie was one of Britain’s most accomplished and celebrated ceramicists, and was made a Dame, one of the country’s highest honors, in 1991, in recognition of her contributions to elevating the craft to an art form. The title came a year after Rie made her final works, ceasing her practice after she suffered a stroke. She died in 1995, aged 93.

Lucie Rie, Vase with flaring lip (ca. 1965). Photo courtesy of Phillips.

Born Lucie Gomperz in Vienna in 1902, Rie was the youngest daughter of Benjamin Gomperz, a doctor and consultant to Sigmund Freud. At 20, she studied pottery at the Austrian capital’s Kunstgewerbeschule, and by 23 she had set up her first studio and was exhibiting professionally. She fled to London in 1938 to escape anti-Semitic persecution following the German annexation of Austria, moving into a small Hyde Park flat in which she would spend the remainder of her life. For a time, the physicist Erwin Schrödinger (best known for his thought experiment involving a cat) lodged with her.

She mixed almost all of her own glazes and experimented with the recipes for her clay. Her ceramics were characterized by their thin walls (some so thin that light shone through them), delicate features, pastel color combinations, and sgraffito decoration (designs scratched into a layer of glaze or strip before firing). This subtle and sensuous approach set Rie apart from contemporaries like Bernard Leech, whose work was much heavier and more subdued. Rie’s signature sgraffito designs were inspired by her experience in the late 1940s, at a museum near Avebury in Wiltshire, of seeing Bronze Age pots which featured designs which had been scratched in using bird bones.

Ceramics on view at Phillips London, ahead of a 2021 sale. Photo: Dominic Lipinski / PA Images via Getty Images.

When Rie first arrived in London she could not secure the license to create her ceramic vessels professionally (as a result of being branded an “enemy alien”), so she began to create ceramic buttons for designers and fashion stores, hiring German émigré Hans Coper to assist her. Coper later became Rie’s studio partner, and the two have been historically closely associated, being paired in exhibitions (including a major retrospective at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1994) and having had two books written about their overlapping practices. In addition to buttons, Rie also created jewelry and umbrella handles to earn her living.

She became a naturalized British citizen in 1948, and held her first solo exhibition, at London’s Berkeley Galleries, the following year. Between 1958 and 1972, she taught at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and continued to exhibit her creations.

The title of the Phillips auction comes from a quote by Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, who said about his personal ceramic collection, “I am often asked to speak of instances where I have been moved by beauty… Lucie Rie and her work represent some which most often come to mind.”

Lucie Rie, Footed bowl (ca. 1978). Photo courtesy of Phillips.

A white-footed porcelain bowl dating to the late 1970s achieved Rie’s second-highest price at auction at Phillips’ December 11 sale, fetching $422,910. This approached her existing record of €406,800 ($438,882), achieved with another footed bowl (ca. 1980) at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr, in December 2023.

Phillips previously achieved a record-breaking price for another flared footed bowl Rie created in 1978, which sold for $212,500 in 2016. Rie’s prices have steadily climbed since then. Four such footed bowls sold at Phillips for over $100,000 during this month’s sale.

“The results, combined with bidding participation from more than 20 countries,” said Phillips design specialist Benjamin Green, “only reinforces the notion of Rie’s enduring international appeal and the strength of ceramics in the design landscape.”