Maiolica

The Nicolier family were long-established antiques dealers who were based on the Quai Voltaire on the Parisian left bank for many decades.

This Italian maiolica plate painted with a profile portrait of man and an inscribed scrolling ribbon comes from Deruta and dates from the early 16th century.

Single sale offers two notable collections featuring Italian maiolica and French faience

An extremely rare and early Italian maiolica dish, discovered broken in pieces in a drawer, was hammered down at just over £1m at Lyon & Turnbull.

Although catalogued as 19th century, this 10½in (27cm) maiolica dish is more probably 16th century.

This tin-glazed earthenware fragment comes from a once magnificent early Italian maiolica ‘istoriato’ dish from the first half of the 16th century.

The sale of the Müller-Frei collection of paintings and decorative arts held by Koller (25% buyer’s premium) in Zurich last month included two early 18th century Meissen figure groups that outstripped their estimates.

The latest Fine Interiors sale at Sworders (25% buyer’s premium) included among the opening lots this large 22in (54cm) high maiolica storage jar.

The opening lot of the Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh on February 5 was this previously unrecorded maiolica handled and spouted wet drug jar.

Dealers from France and England contributed to a protracted bidding battle for a rare Renaissance maiolica dish offered at an auction house in Saxony.

The ceramics sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on April 30 includes two maiolica apothecary jars and covers from the celebrated Fortuna series – an ambitious suite of pharmacy jars and jugs made in the third quarter of the 16th century.

A ground-breaking Mayfair exhibition takes a rare focus on first examples of the maiolica technique.