Decorative Art

The Hambleton Group, who have built the world’s largest toy auction house, Vectis, launch a new auction business on Teesside with a sale of Georgian silver on August 22.

After three years of restoration work, the porcelain rooms of the Zwinger State Art Collection in Dresden are to re-open to the public on Sunday October 6.

“SOME types of Bow have revived in popularity and botanical subjects are very popular,” said specialist Deborah Clarke, after a set of four octagonal plates, two shown right, were consigned by a Scottish collector to Bonhams (17.5 per cent buyer’s premium) sale of ceramics and glass in Edinburgh on June 28.

In the week before the world’s leading golfers competed for a silver claret jug on the Muirfield links outside Edinburgh, a much older prize from the Leith Links of the Honourable Company of Golfers of Edinburgh was being contested in Cheshire.

The sale of pottery and porcelain from the Minton Museum Collection took place at Bonhams Bond Street on July 23. The 379 lots realised £714,025 net against an estimate of £400,000.

USA: THREE pieces of Tiffany art glass and a Tiffany-type lamp from the Handel factory – sold by Doyles of New York on June 5 and by Skinners of Boston on June 22 – are featured here.

“Full of fire and and zealous faculty breaking its way through all conventionalism to such truth as it can conceive” – thus was the forthright opinion of John Ruskin on seeing George Tinworth’s collection of eight terracotta panels of biblical scenes at the 1875 Royal Academy Exhibition.

This rare 9in (23cm) diameter Venetian lattimo glass plate of c.1741, with iron red decoration of the Piazetta at Venice led Bonhams’ May 22 Continental ceramics sale when it was bid to £36,000.

English ceramics may have been the junior partner to their Continental cousins in lot terms at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) on June 27, making up just 81 of the 230 lots, but they provided the two highest prices.

English blue and white pottery may not be the most fashionable ceramic collecting area, but the 144-lot Patricia Davis collection offered in the June 11 morning session at Sworders Essex rooms suffered only 22 casualties.

Specialist items, including a collection of five nut crackers and novelty silver entries, encouraged buyers to travel to Herefordshire to bid in this 1080-lot sale at Brightwells on 11 June, which was 70 per cent sold by lot.

The oriental inspiration of this 51/2in (13cm) high Meissen teapot of c.1728 extends not only to its finely painted figural decoration by J G Horoldt but also to its peach-shaped form. At £78,000 it made the highest price in a single-owner collection of Meissen porcelain held at Christie’s on July 8.

LONDON: NOTTING Hill specialists in 20th century and contemporary design Themes and Variations hold an exhibition of Italian furniture and glass design at their gallery at 231 Westbourne Grove, London W11 from September 27 to October 19.

SALES IN PARIS – THE LAFOND COLLECTION: A RAREFIED array of pharmacy jars formed the basis of the former Louis Lafond Collection presented at Briest on June 4. Lafond (1880-1950) was a practising chemist whose unremarkable personal history epitomises that of the dedicated, middle-class, often anonymous buying public that continues to flourish in France and, especially, at the Hôtel Drouot.

THERE were few out and out stars at the Amersham Buckinghamshire rooms on 6 June but the buyers were keen enough to support the auctioneers’ contention that, with more widespread holidays and the Internet, it is only vendors who are cautious about midsummer sales.

Bradbury’s Book of Hallmarks, revised edition 2002, published by the Sheffield Assay Office, Guardians Hall, 137 Portobello Road, Sheffield Sl 4DS. Tel: 0114 275 5111 Hardback £16 ISBN l872212026. Paperback ISBN 1872212034 £5.50

A zeal for collecting in an age of double glazing has created a strong market for pottery window rests, which have been freed from the domestic drudgery of keeping sash windows open and elevated to the mantelpiece as decorative works of art in their own rights.

With their lively if somewhat comic subject matter, these so-called ‘Scotsmen’ famille rose plates, 18th century, always receive a warm welcome. But the comic depiction of this kilted couple of the 42nd Foot Regiment belies the fate that lay in store for them.

This quartet of Meissen white figures from Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace was a centrepiece of the June 13 evening sale from Longleat, contributing £2.9m to the overall total.

AT the time it was produced – 1930/31 – the geometric design of a Shelley tea set with triangular handles was far from popular and speedily withdrawn. Seven decades on, with Art Deco a buoyant area and Shelley becoming more in demand by collectors, the scarcity of the pattern was a considerable addition to the appeal of a tea set for six offered at Stride’s 1000-lot West Sussex sale.