Some turn up with fair regularity and are priced accordingly in the £200-1000 bracket. Others, such as the scarce model offered at the St Peter’s Assembly Rooms, Hale last month, attract serious competition even in a selective market hampered by a weak dollar.
Pride of place in any collection would be the example pictured here, decorated to the dish and stand with alternate panels of fish, storks and flowers within bamboo borders to a turquoise ground. To the octagonal raised lid is a characterful stork finial. Measuring a typical 8 x 7in (20 x 18cm), it was marked to the mottled green base with the George Jones monogram and a registration lozenge for 1875. It sold at £2900.
Also soaring above expectations was an Art Deco cold-painted bronze and ivory figure of a young girl in wide sleeved jacket and trousers and a parrot on her arm by Lorenzl. The 11in (28cm) high figure had some condition problems (the head was reglued, the green and black onyx octagonal plinth was possibly associated and it was minus its securing screw), but made £1350.
The ceramics section was also enlivened by a small collection of 18th century blue and white transfer printed teawares. These included a Worcester tea bowl and saucer in the Dairymaids pattern, c.1770 sold at £260, a Caughley coffee cup and saucer in the House and Fence pattern, c.1780 (£140) and a Caughley tea bowl and saucer in The European Landscape Group pattern c.1780 (£220).
There was also a substantial quantity of art pottery, much of it from a small terraced house in nearby Timperley. A Minton 16in (41cm) diameter ‘encaustic’ plaque decorated with panels of pale yellow lions and birds around a central portrait medallion and a pierced border was the best seller at £480.
One of Keith Murray’s Wedgwood globular green-glazed vases with ridged decoration, 7in (18cm) high, sold at £320; a small 2in (5cm) Wemyss jug decorated with a black cockerel inscribed Bon Jour took £240 while a Clarice Cliff milk jug in the Pastel Autumn pattern sold at £420 despite a small firing crack to the foot rim.
Two lots from a well-received silver offering were of particularly good quality. Sold at £620 was a large (25oz) pair of oval sauceboats with shaped gadrooned borders, cast scroll handles, shell appliqué scroll legs, cast shell feet and marks for Tessiers, London 1912. A pair of William IV silver gilt stemmed salts with cast floral turn-over rims and bases by the Barnard brothers, London 1832, were offered together with a pair of Scottish silver gilt spoons with stag crests marked RG&S, Glasgow c.1838. They sold at £600.
A pair of 9in (22cm) high late Victorian candlesticks with loaded panelled bases with leaf corners, knopped panelled stems and spool shape candleholders with detachable nozzles by Hawksworth Eyre & Co., Sheffield 1899 sold at £540, while a pair of 14oz Edwardian sweetmeat baskets with panelled navette shaped bowls, chased foliage mounts and decorative loop handles by Jackson & Fullerton, London 1913 sold at £430.
Undervalued a decade ago, both the scholarship and values of Chinese silver have risen amid increased interest from the United States and Hong Kong. Here, a good mug decorated with insects amongst foliage with a bamboo handle plus pseudo hallmarks and the maker’s monogram KHC sold at £320.
Patrick Cheyne, Altrincham, January 24
Buyer’s Premium: 12 per cent
Majolica sardine dish serves up a £2900 treat
Countless numbers of sardine dishes were turned out by the 100 or so potteries who made majolica wares in the final third of the 19th century but for some collectors the mission is to find an example of each.
