Among the highlights of their February 24 sale are an Arts and Crafts Broadwood piano designed by Charles Robert Ashbee, a Modernist carpet designed by Marion Dorn for a private house in Holland Park and a group of 35 lots of French Art Deco, Austrian Secessionist furnishings and Chiparus figures that have come from a Geneva apartment.
One of the most colourful entries is a pair of 4ft x 20in (1.2m x 50cm) William de Morgan painted tile panels of 1890s date, one of which is shown here. They are both decorated with formal Italianate garden scenes, painted to a design by Halsey Ricardo which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The striking panels, which once formed part of a fire surround, have come from Paxhill, an Elizabethan house whose South wing was refurbished when it was acquired by William Sturdy in 1877. Paxhill still retains a de Morgan-tiled fireplace, but its current owners found these panels in storage, for the house has gone through several changes of use and ownership and the fireplace to which they once formed a surround, no longer exists. The pair, which would make a striking focal point to any interior, is estimated to make £15,000-20,000 when it comes up for sale next month.
De Morgan out of storage
Whether your penchant is for Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco or later 20th century design, and whether you are looking for examples in ceramic, glass, metallic, furnishing or sculptural form, Sotheby’s Olympia’s first Decorative Arts sale of 2004 promises its usual broad mix.
