Decorative Art

In the second major Internet shill bidding case, three people have been charged with running a scheme that boosted the sale prices of hundreds of pieces of Lalique glass auctioned on eBay.

Top seller at a brisk day’s bidding at the Cheltenham sale held by Mallams (15% premium) on January 31 was a pair of classical style gilt metal and lapis lazuli urns and covers, one shown right.

Transferring fine vintage wines from the bottle to the decanter without disturbing the sediment has been an age-old concern of those who take their wine seriously. It was clearly a concern in the 18th century, as can be attested by this ingenious and now rare George II silver wine syphon, right, which came under the hammer at Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) February 19 sale of Selected Silver and Plate.

The Caddy Spoon in the 20th Century, published by the Society of Caddy Spoon Collectors, Upper Nordens Clinic, Royal Oak Lane, High Hurstwood, Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 4AN, price £12.60 including p&p.

Tea-drinking first took off in the West in the late 17th century and in its wake came a whole host of paraphernalia associated with the consumption and storage of the beverage.

Would that every soldier was awarded a piece of porcelain, as well as a medal, for acts of outstanding bravery. What a civilised army that would make.

There were peaks and troughs in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) annual 166-lot Art Nouveau sale, February 12, but little appears to have changed since their last auction foray into this field, in April 2001.

Topping this 740-lot sale on 25-26 January at Raymond Inman's was a pair of Royal Worcester two-handled vases painted by Charles Baldwyn, one of the most distinguished Worcester designers, with images of swans on a river with raised water reeds to one side and flying swans to the other.

FRANCE: Camard reported “strong progress” in demand among trade and private buyers for 20th century ceramics last year. They returned to the field this year when they offered a “panorama of 100 years of history of ceramics” at Drouot on January 25.

FRANCE: Pictured right is a restored 18th century two-part fountain basin, with a veined red marble shell topped by a white stone lion head, which sold over expectations for €25,000 (£15,500) at Tajan on January 30

THIS first sale of the new year at the Staffordshire rooms Richard Winterton attracted a number of new buyers who were all in the area for the LAPADA fair at the nearby Birmingham NEC.

FINLAND: While they would not look out of place in the William Morris Museum or in Hill House Helensburgh, two silvered brass candlesticks in this sale had never left Finland. They came up for auction at Helsinki auction house, Hagelstam (12% buyer’s premium) on December 1 last year, where they had been catalogued with an estimate of FiM50,000/€8410 (the fale was conducted in Finnish Markk.

There was no charitable quarter given to rival bidders when this plaster bust of General Charles Booth took centre stage at Duke’s (15 per cent buyer’s premium) dispersal of the Timothy Rich collection of Staffordshire figures in Dorchester on January 24.

The 102 lots of European ceramics that rounded off Christie’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) December 13 furnishing sale at King Street had, despite a degree of softness to the Meissen market, a generally high take-up for that factory, with 18 of the 25 lots of tablewares and figures changing hands and some strong individual results.

The final ceramics auction in London last year was the glass sale held at Sotheby’s Olympia on December 18. The top priced lot at £50,000 was this damaged but rare North German covered goblet of c.1675, painted and signed by Johann Anton Carli of Andermach am Rhein with a scene of Christ and the woman of Samaria.

SPAIN: The real star of the Sala Retiro (16% buyer’s premium) main sale of the season, held on December 12 and 13 was a piece of silver, specifically a large, 153/4in (40cm) high silver lidded jug made in Spain in the first third of the 17th century.

FRANCE: A gilded and bleu céleste Louis XVI Sèvres cup and saucer, right, 51/2in (14cm) tall and known as the Gobelet Dauphin, sold over estimate for Fr260,000 (£24,800) at Piasa in Paris on December 7.

Bonhams are to sell the impressive collection of Minton ceramics from the Minton Museum, Stoke-on-Trent in their New Bond Street rooms this year. The collection will be dispersed in two instalments, with the first 400-lot dispersal scheduled for April 30.

COUNTRYWIDE hints that there may be some lift to the general silver market got a further boost at this Staffordshire sale on 28-29 November at Wintertons where one of the main sections comprised 13 silver lots, of which 90 per cent sold to both trade and private bidders with Christmas in mind.

This Edinburgh sale of ceramics and glass on 30 November was notably well attended from the South of England, with dealers from London, Nottingham and Gloucestershire on the floor of the saleroom.