Silver & Silver-plated items

More of a curiosity than a clock but a decorator’s dream, a life-size caricature of a smiling Chinese man clutching a willow-pattern plate with gilt dragon hands emerged in the Ayr rooms of Thomas R Callan (17.5% buyer’s premium).

A mixed-discipline summer estates sale to be held by Neal Auction Company in New Orleans on June 22-23 will include this pair of 70oz, silver-gilt Edwardian figural tazzae by Elkington & Co marked for Birmingham 1907 with removable glass bowls.

This silver-gilt Doncaster Cup racing trophy has hallmarks for Daniel Smith and Robert Sharp for 1767.

Target of a London silver specialist, this pair of late Victorian silver fluted vases was the best-seller at East Sussex auction house Burstow & Hewett (20% buyer’s premium).

Thirty years ago organiser Matthew Adams launched his antiques fair held at the Royal Horticultural Halls.

Henry Aldridge & Son will offer items from the Skidmore collection at its May 18 sale – including these pieces of late 19th century Chinese ‘export’ silver.

Underpinned by bids from the internet, silver from beyond the British Isles is these days a stronger feature of provincial sales.

Russian works of art are coming up for sale at Dr Fischer in Heilbronn on May 17.

Satirical magazine Private Eye once ran a series highlighting the fatuity of interviews by supposedly asking famous names their feelings towards spoons, there being nothing more mundane or less worthy of comment. But the appeal of an antique spoon to the cognoscenti is not difficult to appreciate.

An Elkington electroplated duck press outsold silver proper at Halls (20% buyer’s premium) of Shrewsbury on March 20.

Two cased Stuart Devlin silver gilt surprise eggs of unique designs sold for £4400 at 1818 Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Milnthorpe on April 1.

On account of its relative scarcity, all Irish silver carries a premium. It is the pieces made in small provincial centres that are most highly prized.

Offered as a sale within a sale, 34 silver snuff boxes and vinaigrettes came fresh to market at Lawrences’ April 9 sale after decades in a private collection.

After almost 50 years on public display in the silver galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a James I silver shell-form spice or sugar box was offered for sale at Salisbury saleroom Woolley & Wallis.

Bearing later Georgian or Victorian embossed decoration, this 13¾in (35cm) diameter, 22oz silver charger, below, was a much earlier work.

A charity antiques fair in aid of a Kent hospice will run at the Skinners School in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday, April 28.

Having produced only 700-800 works in his short-lived career, Gilbert Marks (1861-1905) is not among the best-known silversmiths of his generation but was considered one of the foremost craftsmen of his day.

Stephen Kalms set up his antique silver business in The London Silver Vaults in 1991. He specialises in 18th-20th century works, particularly Victorian and Edwardian pieces up to the present.

Silver across five centuries caught the eye at provincial sales in February.