Decorative Art

DESPITE the well-documented vagaries of the silver and electroplate market, if vendors can forget the price history of the previous two decades it is still possible to hold a successful sale of country house tablewares.

FOLLOWING relegation, the on-running saga of Leeds United’s finances no doubt will mean that the club will end up selling more of their players over the summer. However, spare a thought for Crouch End Vampires F.C., one of the longest established amateur football clubs, that literally ended up selling the family silver at Bonhams Bath (17.5% buyer premium) back on March 15.

THE market’s mood for the earliest English porcelain was in evidence at the April 27 sale held by Brettells (12% buyer’s premium) of Newport. The Shropshire firm offered a 16-lot private collection of mainly Worcester wares.

WILD beasts, and tigers in particular, loomed large in the late Georgian imagination. They appear in a range of guises, from the fearful symmetry of William Blake’s Tyger to the almost cuddly features of the big cats modelled by Staffordshire potters for popular consumption.

“The best example I have seen in the last ten years,” said Woolley and Wallis’ decorative arts specialist Michael Jeffery, of this Martinware bird, which was consigned to the auctioneers’ May 26 sale from a vendor in the New Forest.

THE meteoric growth in demand for the rarer Beswick farm animals in good condition saw more money change hands for a 20th century Beswick Belted Galloway Bull than for an 18th century Whieldon bull and calf, at Brightwells' (15% buyer's premium) 524-lot April 28 specialist ceramic outing.

AT Gorringes’ (15% buyer's premium) April 27-29 sale, specialist Aaron Dean was satisfied with the reaction to some 200 lots of silver but, with the market for routine tea services and so on remaining fairly moribund, it is the smaller collectables which catch the eye.

Right: this fine Nantgarw porcelain plate, once thought to be painted by Thomas Baxter and traditionally known as the ‘Three Graces’, was part of a collection of porcelain offered by Worcestershire auctioneers Philip Serrell on May 20.

ANOTHER piece of wine-related silver was among the better sellers at Olivers (10% buyer's premium) April 1 sale in the form of an Edwardian monteith.

SOME 100 lots of silver and plate at Amersham Auction Rooms' (15% buyer's premium) April 1 400-lot sale largely bore out the current perception of the market that wine-related items will sell in an otherwise moribund market.

APPEAL Court judges have lifted the punishment given to a London dealer convicted of handling £1.5m worth of stolen silver after hearing how he had committed the crimes in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.

THE unexceptional contents of a Scottish country house may have furnished Mallams (15% buyer's premium) April 28 304-lot outing with three-quarters of its entries, but it was the decorative, ornamental works from a variety of other private sources which provided many of the highlights.

BILLED as a regular Victorian sale, the main attractions of Abbots Auction Rooms' (10% buyer's premium) March 29 sale were in a 129-lot specialist decorative arts section – in particular two pieces of René Lalique glass.

OFFERED at Edinburgh’s Royal College of Surgeons, a 169-lot section of Scottish provincial silver provided many of the highlights at Thomson Roddick & Medcalf’s (15% buyer's premium) March 29 sale.

RIGHT: the faience wares decorated by Louis Kramer for Burmantofts between 1887 and 1890 are among the most coveted productions of the Yorkshire factory. So there was lots of interest among academics, collectors and dealers prior to the May 8 sale at Fieldings of Stourbridge in this fully signed 18in (46cm) diameter charger.

BIRMINGHAM auctioneers Biddle & Webb (15% buyer’s premium) have been holding regular decorative arts sales for some years now. Generally 20th century ceramics top the sales list and this was again the case at the April 16 sale when two 13in (33cm) examples of Drunken Bricklayer vases designed by Geoffrey Baxter for the Whitefriars pottery were major stars.

SOMETIMES the significance of important commemorative pieces, which must have been so obvious at the time of their manufacture, remains something of a mystery to modern day collectors.

MOST of us are familiar with the designs Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Keith Murray produced for Wedgwood, but how many have heard of Norman Makinson?

KEYS (10% buyer's premium) of Aylsham maintain the format of mammoth offerings – 1556 lots offered over two days (April 20-21) in this case – and, although only 60 per cent of them got away, there was plenty of material for budget-conscious collectors of such favourites as Royal Doulton character jugs and figures as well as Beswick Beatrix Potter and animal models.

ARCHITECTURAL antiques and stained glass specialist Drew Pritchard is holding a trade and professional open day on Saturday June 19 to officially mark his company’s move into splendid new showrooms and workshops at St. George’s Church, Church Walks, Llandudno in North Wales.