Ceramics

The market for Lucie Rie ceramics continues to thrive. A new auction high for the doyenne of the British studio pottery movement was posted by Phillips in New York this month– the fourth occasion a record has been set in just two years.

A group of three Doccia porcelain dishes from c.1740-45 sold for £70,000 at a stellar sale at Cheffins in Cambridge.

A temporary export bar has been placed on a rare Wedgwood vase in the hope £482,500 can be raised to keep it in the UK.

This stoneware vase designed by Henry Van De Velde for Reinhold Hanke was sold at Mallams in Oxford earlier today for £17,000.

This French porcelain hot water jug, or ‘pot à eau’ was made at the Vincennes factory in 1754, probably for the Dauphine Maria Josepha. The mother of King Louis XVI, who was guillotined during the French Revolution, she was an important patron of Vincennes.

The quirky characterful and very British art pottery created by the late 19th/early 20th century artist potters Wallace, Robert and Edwin Martin is as popular in the US as in its country of origin.

Plymouth Auction Rooms made a surprise find on a recent visit to a remote Cornish cottage on the banks of the river Tamar. The auction firm was valuing a mixture of Cornish art and collectables at the address when it came across a Pablo Picasso vase.

In the run-up to the US election on November 8, Frances Allitt takes a look at the objects previous presidents borrowed, bought – and sometimes broke.

At just over 17in (42cm) high, the 1920s Wedgwood vase (shape 2465) is among the largest produced in the Fairyland Lustre range.

Coalport porcelain, like that produced at Derby, is renowned for its quality and decoration, drawing inspiration from work produced at the celebrated Sèvres factory.

A new selling exhibition at Jupiter Antiques this weekend features a selection of the porcelain specialist’s more affordable pieces.

A large collection of 17th century Chinese porcelain could be broken up and sold after a family feud among the heirs of Sir Michael Butler, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher.

Lord and Lady Attenborough’s collection of Pablo Picasso ceramics will be up for auction in November at Sotheby’s in London.

Forty-two ceramic artists have been chosen from 100 applicants to exhibit at the three-day Ceramic Art York event which opens tomorrow at the city’s Museum Gardens.

When in the middle of the century Suffolk collector Hugh Marsham Townshend (1878-1967) was amassing a collection of gold-mounted porcelain scent bottles and other trinkets, most were thought to be the products of the Chelsea porcelain works or a shadowy enterprise known as the ‘Girl in a Swing’ factory.

The V&A have acquired an early form by the artist-potter Hans Coper (1920-81). Made in 1955 in the studio Coper shared with Lucie Rie in Paddington, London, the large bowl was the subject of a temporary export ban in 2015 in the hope a UK buyer could be found.

Studio pottery has been hogging the arts and crafts headlines for a while now. In recent years collectors have really taken this field to heart and items produced by 20th century designers such as Lucie Rie and Hans Coper have been drawing strong bids at auction.

The so-called Lucerne pattern, decorated in primary colours with a stylised Mediterranean chateau in a landscape, ranks among the scarcest and most desirable of all designs from Clarice Cliff’s ‘Appliqué’ range.

Police are investigating a raid on The Old Mill Antiques Centre in Bridgnorth, Shrophire.