Decorative Art

THE reputation established by Gardiner Houlgate over the last ten years for Clarice Cliff pottery has resulted in two specialist sales each year of around 200 lots.

Regular readers of ATG saleroom reports will be all too aware of the recent price explosion of Minton’s pâte sur pâte ceramics. This highly distinctive, almost cameo-like form of carved slip decoration was perfected by Louis-Marc Solon who had his own special iconography of nymphs and putti engaged in a bewildering array of quirky pursuits.

Wedgwood, famous as it is, is not the leading name for majolica collectors and this mid 19th century matchbox modelled as a fly, right, was something of a puzzle to Paul Goodley, specialist at Aylsham auctioneers Keys (10% buyer’s premium) when it was entered for the March 15-16 Norfolk sale.

SPECIAL Auction Services, the West Berkshire auctioneers best known for regular sales of commemoratives and pot lids, are themselves on the market.

CERAMICS SALES IN FRANCE £1 = €1.44A collection of drink-related objects and another devoted to Italian Renaissance maiolica were two very different single-owner properties on offer on the same day at the Paris auction house ArtCurial (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) last month.

Right: this handsome reticulated porcelain vase and cover by George Owen was the highlight of a private and local collection of Royal Worcester porcelain sold by Glasgow auctioneers McTear’s on March 25.

Topping a very successful sale by Reading specialists Special Auction Services ( 15% buyer’s premium) on March 12 was this rare brown stoneware spirit flask, left, by Oldfield & Co. Date c.1835 and depicting the then Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. The 9 1/4in (23.5cm) flask sold on its mid-estimate £3000.

A newly-discovered Coalport design book will be among the highlights of Geoffrey Godden’s Special Connoisseurs Meeting on March 29-31.

ONE dealer who concurs with the findings in a recent BADA poll that shop exhibitions play an increasingly important part in business is Wiltshire ceramics specialist (and BADA member) Andrew Dando.

When Bonhams embarked on their first dispersal of the mammoth Zorensky collection of First Period Worcester, there were murmurings in the trade (and presumably some crossed fingers in the saleroom’s ceramics department).

Alex Neish is to donate a small collection of Judaica to a museum at the recently excavated and restored 12th century synagogue in Barcelona.

Brightwells, Leominster, January 12-13 Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent Illuminating this 900-lot Hereford-shire sale was the English brass candlestick featured on the front page of ATG No.1675, February 5, which was taken to £4600 in the confident belief it was a period 16th century example.

The market for Clarice Cliff may not be the spirited beast it was five or six years ago when Christie’s South Kensington’s specialist sales could routinely expect to boast 80-90 per cent selling rates by lot.

THE engaging subject and large size of this 16 x 13in (41 x 33cm) Berlin-style porcelain plaque, right, helped it to the top slot at the January 18 sale held by Philip Laney (15% buyer’s premium) at the Malvern Auction Centre.

THE currencies of the world will be traded at Maastricht, but no exchange is likely to match that seen on the stand of West Yorkshire porcelain specialist Valerie Clark at Robert Bailey’s Winter Fine Art and Antiques Fair in Harrogate over the weekend of February 4 to 6.

Have van, will travel. Competition for market-fresh material is as strong in the northwest as anywhere in the country, so auctioneer Adrian Byrne was more than happy to entertain the prospect of travelling to the Orkney Islands in pursuit of a decent house clearance.

DISTINGUISHED Kensington early English pottery specialist Jonathan Horne, whose stock is as popular with his many American collectors as on the home market, returns from the New York Ceramics Fair to his shop at 66c Kensington Church Street, London W8 from February 22 to March 5 for his 25th annual exhibition.

JUST a couple of years ago, specialist glass fairs were proliferating. That frenzy seems to have settled down of late, probably because the serious glass dealers understandably are getting choosy. But one that increasingly is making its mark is the Cambridge Glass Fair, organised by Paul Bishop under the name Oxbridge Fairs, which will be held for the fifth time this Sunday (February 20) at Chilford Hall Vineyard, Linton, Cambridgeshire.

Fine Art Auctioneer Dr. Jürgen Fischer in Heilbronn, Germany has announced an important forthcoming sale of European and Studio Glass to be held on 11th and 12th March 2005.

TO the non-specialist, a cracked and chipped blue and white 18th century delft plate might have seemed reasonably estimated at £60-100 in the January 5 sale held by Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium).