Decorative Art

NOT for nothing is the antiques market known for being unpredictable, nay, almost perverse. In the middle of the worst recession that many dealers have experienced, the worst drought that many salerooms have ever had to endure, auctioneer Nigel Kirk of Mellors and Kirk recorded his best sale in the brief (ten-year) history of his business on 10-11 April. He could not quite believe it, especially as half of the furniture lots failed to sell, but the statistics bore out the remarkable reality.

CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).

Many Antiques Trade Gazette readers will be familiar with the name Francis Raeymaekers of ADC Heritage from his days as a dealer in antique silver. After a sojourn in New York, he is back in London with a new venture.

Downturn in trade blamed: The Bond Street Silver Galleries, a fixture on London’s finest antiques thoroughfare for 40 years, is to close in the autumn. The downturn in the trade for table and decorative antique silver is behind the imminent closure of the 18 strongrooms, more than half of which have been vacated in the last six months.

This rare and impressive Royal Worcester porcelain model of a Golden Eagle, right, attracted huge amounts of interest from Royal Worcester collectors when it came to the rostrum on April 10 at the Worcester rooms of Andrew Grant (15% buyer’s premium).

Pictured on the front cover of the 530-lot catalogue offered by Suffolk auctioneers Abbotts (10 per cent buyer’s premium) on March 12 was a group of Moorcroft pottery assembled by a Southwold collector over the past 25 years.

THE auction record for Clarice Cliff was sent tumbling last week on May 14 when Christie’s South Kensington sold this May Avenue charger for £34,000, almost double the previous high of £18,000 paid in December 2001 at Phillips for a charger decorated with the Windmill pattern.

IT’S hard to say whether modern studio potters find the Della Robbia story inspiring or depressing. Established by Harold Rathbone and Conrad Dressler in Birkenhead in 1894, in its 12-year operation the factory became a key part of the Arts and Crafts movement but also went broke.

A pair of candlesticks featured strongly at ELR Auctions' 28 March sale (12.5% buyer's premium), were a classic by Ebeneezer Coker, who along with Cafe, is probably the best known of all candlestick makers.

MOST numismatic material when offered at auction comes up in London. Sometimes this is not the case and then frequently a better-than-usual price is achieved.

IT’S been a long time since any auctioneer chose to illustrate his catalogue front cover with an array of silver candlesticks but this was the rather heartening decision by The Bristol Auction Rooms for their April 8 sale (12.77% buyer's premium inc. VAT) and their enlightened, so to speak, move was rewarded when all the lots, from George IV to 1967, sold within or above the admittedly modest three-figure expectations.

AFTER 15 years in the glass business, Cheshire organiser Patricia Hier knows her field well and it shows at her twice-yearly National Glass Collectors Fair, the next of which will be held at the National Motorcycle Museum, West Midlands on Sunday May 11.

Devon auctioneers SJ Hales (15 per cent buyer’s premium) have moved to a wider field than the ceramics, and particularly Staffordshire, on which they founded their reputation but this area remains their strength. The 500 varied ceramic lots and nearly 200 Staffordshire pieces took most of the better prices among the 1500 offerings at the new Bovey Tracey rooms on March 12 and 13.

Getting Sotheby’s Olympia’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) 288-lot April 2 sale of British and European Ceramics off to a brisk start was a well received section devoted to early Italian maiolica, Dutch Delft and other tin-glazed earthenwares.

Illustrated are a pair of ice pails, covers and liners from the Duke of Newcastle’s Derby porcelain service, c.1797, dispersed by Mellors and Kirk in Nottingham on April 10.

IT’S not often that Britain recovers a highly important work from the United States – most of the traffic is usually the other way. However, Norfolk Museums Service are celebrating silver dealer Christopher Hartop’s triumph in negotiating the return of Sir Robert Walpole’s sterling silver tureen, which has now been put on show in the silver gallery at Norwich Castle.

Minton did majolica just a bit better than anyone else – not just in their large monumental and sculptural pieces but also in the smaller and more mundane wares.

The death of Walter Moorcroft last year and the strong prices at Sotheby’s recent dispersal of the Wade collection have reinforced the popularity of this market, especially for the earlier Macintyre wares. A small collection at Bonham’s sale in Bury St Edmunds yielded the following results.

The Oriental glazes of the Midlands Arts and Crafts pottery known as Ruskinware have proved remarkably popular in the past year, as the disposal of the Wade collection at Sotheby’s and the Birkett Collection at Bonhams took prices in this market to unprecedented levels.

Top price in the latest round of ceramics sales in London was the £22,000 paid at Christie’s King Street rooms on February 24 for this 9in (23cm) wide mid-17th century delft posset pot.