Decorative Art

Gloucestershire-based British art pottery dealer Alison Davey of AD Antiques has created a series of ‘passports’ for Martin Brothers’ birds.

Organisers launch new fair in Suffolk after long-standing event had to be abandoned.

MADAM – Have ATG readers got a Grayson Perry pot or plate from the 1980s lurking in their living rooms? If they have, then the Holburne Museum in Bath wants to hear from them.

This early Meissen teapot and cover was among the stand-out sales at the joint selling exhibition 'A Collectors’ Paradise' held at Brian Haughton Gallery in St James’s.

MADAM – I was interested to see the picture of ‘outsize tongs’ considered to vegetable tongs or salad servers from a recent Adam’s sale in Dublin (ATG No 2352, page 21).

Amusing animals assuming human characteristics are not just for social media. The anthropomorphic figure groups modelled by George Tinworth (1843-1913) for the Doulton Lambeth factory rank among the best of all Victorian art pottery.

This set of three tubeline tiles featuring polychrome birds in a grassland setting, is one of the many pieces on offer at The Cotswolds Decorative, Antiques & Art Fair at Westonbirt School.

The so-called auricular style – all organic fluid lines and asymmetrical shapes populated by marine invertebrates and reptiles – can first be found in the 1598 ornament book of Northern Mannerism, Architectura…, by Wendel Dietterlin of Stuttgart.

While good-quality but familiar Georgian silver such as entrée dishes, tureens and sauceboats estimated in the £6000-12,000 range met stiff resistance at Dorchester auction house Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) on June 28, two top-quality pieces made their money.

Pairs of Georgian candlesticks by the best-known London specialist makers such as William Cafe and Ebenezer Coker continue to sell well enough, as long as condition is acceptable.

This novelty silver scent bottle, below, appealing to two niche sections largely immune to the swings of the larger silver market, was a target for collectors when offered at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium).

Not every Victorian silver tea and coffee service was sold for scrap in the great meltdown of 2011– when at one point the price reached almost £30 per oz.

These outsize tongs, below, proved the major surprise at Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on June 17.

As collecting evolves, many pieces of decorative, and historically captivating, Georgian silver are priced very keenly at both auction and retail.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.