Decorative arts go online at Lyon & Turnbull

The auction calendar has been much-changed by recent events but some auctioneers are continuing sales online during the ‘shutdown’ period.

Lyon & Turnbull’s sale titled Decorative Arts: Design since 1860 on April 1 will feature an auctioneer alone in the saleroom. Aided by video conferencing software, bids will be invited on commission and via online platforms including thesaleroom.com, allowing the sale to stay within the parameters of the Prime Minister’s and First Minister’s statements on social distancing.

After the sale payment will be handled by the finance team working at home, while the firm is working with its local branch of Mail Boxes Etc to create a ‘no contact’ delivery service for portable objects. Larger items such as furniture will be stored for free until the restrictions on ‘non-essential’ journeys can be lifted.

The sale includes a broad selection of decorative arts spanning a range of design movements from Victorian Aestheticism to post-war Modernism.

Pictured here are a few items from the sale to whet the appetite.

A May Morris embroidery

Although often overshadowed by her famous father, May Morris was herself an important figure in the British Arts & Crafts movement. This 18in by 2ft 4in (45cm x 70cm) embroidered panel with a handwritten inscription reading: Hunter at Bay was designed and worked by me in 1935, May Morris and a paper label for the Morris home, Kelmscott Manor. The May Morris archive in the Ashmolean Museum includes the watercolour design for this piece. Estimate £3000-5000.

A Dresser Linthorpe jug

This 8in (21cm) Linthorpe bird-form jug designed for the Middlesborough pottery by Dr Christopher Dresser has an estimate of £1500-2000.
Unlike his more formal creations for the Minton factory, Dresser enjoyed free rein when creating designs for something like 1000 pots while working as Art Superintendent at Linthorpe from 1879-82. He drew upon a wide range of influences including Minoan, Cycladic, pre-Columbian, Chinese and Japanese ceramics as well as locally-found prehistoric and Bronze Age artefacts. While most of Dresser's designs were intended for mass production, some were made in very small numbers.

Wonderland by Thomas J Clapperton

Wonderland, a 12in (31cm) high bronze on a dished marble base by Scottish sculptor Thomas J Clapperton (1879-1962) has hopes of £6000-9000.
The full-size version of this bronze, inspired by Sir George Frampton’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, was made for the Wonderland Garden in Oamaru, New Zealand in 1926. 

A pen and ink by William Heath Robinson

William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) is best known for drawings of whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives. Indeed, the term ‘Heath Robinson’ has entered the popular language as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contraption. However, the artist’s early career involved illustrating books – among others The Water Babies in 1914. The 8in (20cm) pen and ink illustration from the book has an estimate of £300-500.