“SOMEDAY,” wrote The Times in August 1912, “collectors will ransack the town for Martin’s artistic stonewares.”
Michael Jeffery was hoping that day would arrive on October 31,
2005.
It is a full 12 months since the decorative arts specialist at
Woolley & Wallis first put the feelers out in the collecting
community with his proposal for a single-subject sale dedicated to
the quirky wares of the four Martin brothers.
A year later he had 25-30 different vendors, 74 lots, a small
two-cabinet exhibition, a lecture from pioneering Martinware dealer
Richard Dennis and the attention of many of the world's most
serious collectors.
In order to hold the sale of art pottery grotesques on
Halloween, he was even prepared to risk the wrath of his family -
it was the day of his daughter's second birthday.
This was a sale that told the story of Robert W., Charles D.,
Walter F. and Edwin B. Martin. It included terracotta portrait
plaques of two of the protagonists, a cross-section of the studio
output from the 1880s to the onset of the First World War and a
selection of associated ephemera including examples from the famous
series of photographs taken c.1910 of the men, their birds and
their beards in the workplace.
Above: the rare 7.75in (19.5cm) high triple bird group by
Robert Wallace Martin, incised 'R W Martin & Bros, 1.10.1914',
sold at £40,000 at Woolley & Wallis's specialist sale in
Salisbury.
However, the success or otherwise of the sale would always be
determined by the performance of the bird jars - and there were
nine of them in total.
The early bird catches the worm. Subject to most competition was
a characterful jar and cover from the early 1880s standing 12in
(30cm) high - a squat little chap with large webbed claws and a
bulbous beak casting a sly sideways glance.
These pioneering birds by Robert Wallace Martin (the earliest
dates from 1880) are distinctive for heads and necks that fit
together in only one position. Later birds have a simpler junction
that allows the head to rotate. This bird was last seen at auction
in 2001 when it had sold at $16,000 as part of the Harriman Judd
Collection at Sotheby's New York. Here, it went to an Australian
collector at £26,000 against an estimate of £15,000-20,000.
A triple bird group was one of the few pieces in the offing when
the idea of The Martin Brothers Sale,as it was called, was
first mooted.
Dated 1.10.1914 - some six weeks after the onset of the
First World War - it is one of their last productions.
Standing 7.75in (19.5cm) high on its ebonised wood base, this
rare Southall production had been priced at $26,000 as part of the
commercial exhibition titled The Martin
Brothers conducted by New York dealership Gallery 532
(David Rago and Phillip Chasen) in the autumn of 1995. A decade
later, an overseas buyer bought it in Salisbury at its low estimate
of £40,000.
Avian flu variant H5N1? On the strength of this outing - where
all of the nine jars were sold at substantial numbers - it looks
like a scare story. But, while there are many who covet these
trophies of Victorian art pottery, they have become prohibitively
expensive.
Mr Jeffery estimates that there are perhaps up to 20 collectors
worldwide for whom owning a Martinware bird is both a desirable and
financially feasible pursuit. In Salisbury that translated into
three or four telephone lines and not a great deal of competition
above some muscular estimates.
Mid-range material
There is much more action at more affordable price levels. The
increasing focus upon the less iconic but equally evocative
grotesques that currently occupy the mid-price ranges ensured
competitive bidding for four face jugs and a collection of six
musical imps from a single vendor.
The characterful, white-glazed imps made by Robert Wallace
Martin in 1906 sold at between £2000 (a clarinettist carrying some
damage) and £5000 (a seated cornet player show here). The buyer of
a harp-playing imp at £4200 was also the seller of a large pair of
vases by Robert Wallace Martin, incised with large scaly grotesque
fish, jellyfish and sea creatures. These sold at £10,000 - an
interesting case of a collector changing direction.
The largest of the face jugs, dated 1911, measured 8.5in
(22cm) high and was modelled with two smiling faces.
At Christie's South Kensington in 1995 it made £2600. Here it
took an above-estimate £8500.
Tellingly, the lower end of the price range (from £300 to £3000)
was covered before the sale by what were frequently competitive
commission bids.
Perhaps more significant than a £40,000 bird are the many pieces
in this sale pitched in the lower hundreds that were creeping
towards four figures once the hammer fell. This included a group of
gourd vases, mostly by Edwin and Walter Martin, which brought
between £500 and £1100 apiece. "It was not", said Mr Jeffries, "all
about the birds". So will Martin Brothers in Salisbury become an
annual fixture?
Given the difficulties in finding such a volume of
privately-entered material, Mr Jeffery has no concrete plans to
repeat the exercise. "Somehow, I don't think this is another
Clarice," he said.
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