Decorative Art

This James II or William and Mary silver-gilt travelling set c.1690 was among the exceptional pieces of English silver sold at the latest sale held by Mellors & Kirk of Nottingham.

There are promising signs for the future of the Wedgwood Museum thanks to planning approval given to redevelop the site where it is based near Stoke-on-Trent.

Liz Lees and Meg Wendy, both veteran art and antiques show producers, have formed a partnership to co-produce the New York Ceramics Fair.

A house clearance in Staffordshire yielded this highly decorative pair of late 18th or early 19th century narwhal tusk and gilt-metal lanterns for Louis Taylor’s latest sale in Stoke-on-Trent.

This Scottish provincial George II communion cup topped Lyon & Turnbull’s latest silver sale in Edinburgh.

Back in 1953, The London Silver Vaults opened on the site of the 1880s Chancery Lane Safe Deposit Company, where the great and the good (and no doubt not so good) of London stowed their valuables.

The country house sale of the summer, Bonhams’ on-site, two-day auction of the contents of Trelissick House in Cornwall, including The Copeland China collection of Spode, totalled £2.06m, with every lot sold.

Arousing more immediate interest than anything when Shapes’ catalogue went online, this 16in (40cm) tall Deco period Poole pottery vase bore the impressed mark of Carter Stabler and Adams and the monogram of Truda Carter.

This stoneware bird jar dated 1891 established a new auction record for Martin Brothers when it made £67,000 at the latest Arts and Crafts sale held by Woolley & Wallis.

Abstinence was a ceremonial requirement prior to worshipping the ancestors, the heavens or other deities in the Qing court.

The Benson collection of early spoons was dispersed at Christie’s King Street last week. The highest selling lot was a Henry VI spoon with a Wodewose or wild man finial (one of only four known) which was secured by a UK private buyer on the phone for £70,000.

Is this Elkington kettle the earliest provable Christopher Dresser design for electroplated silver?

Two items of silver stolen from a Worcestershire house have been returned to the owner after a dealer recognised one of them from an alert in ATG.

Possibly dating from the reign of Louis XIV, this fine boulle casket and stand was among an assortment of jewellery, silver, furniture and pictures at Thomas R. Callan’s sale in Ayr, south west Scotland.

Holding a major silver sale days after the melt price has plummeted by about £3 an ounce is hardly ideal timing.

Last week was a busy one for glass and ceramics in the London rooms with five auctions taking place over the space of 48 hours and some bullish prices for top pieces.

Among the most elusive of all Royal Doulton HN series figures is the curious model of a winged cherub astride a crocodilian known simply as ‘Boy on a Crocodile’.

Rare items stolen during a robbery at the Lord Mayor of Newcastle’s Mansion House include a gold Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the 1930s to Arthur Henderson, a pioneer of the Labour Party and campaigner for disarmament.

When she was given the task of cataloguing the japanned ware at the Wolverhampton Art Galleries and Museums, Yvonne Jones quickly discovered two things: the subject was more complex than most people had assumed and there was little in the way of research to help her.

Over 130 lots of silverware that once graced the tables of the Durham Light Infantry’s officers’ mess are to be sold at auction to raise funds for a new bronze memorial statue for Durham.