Gorringes

Philip Taylor is stepping down as managing partner of East Sussex auction house Gorringe’s.

The Weekly Antiques Sale at Gorringe’s on February 27 included this fine Poole Pottery charger.

The quasi-medieval silver and glass ‘claret bottle’ designed by Charles Robert Ashbee for the Guild of Handicraft is one of the great pieces of the Arts & Crafts movement. Ashbee mentions it in his 1909 book Modern English Silver, saying: “The shape is taken from an Elizabethan sack-bottle found when digging the foundations of [my home] the Magpie and Stump in Chelsea.”

Although catalogued as Kangxi period, an ovoid blue and white vase offered by Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium) on September 20 is a Transitional piece.

Gorringe’s book sale on October 11 in Lewes includes part 1 of the ‘vast selection’ of British topographical works from the library of Dr Brian Austen.

This textbook Edwardian Arts & Crafts planished silver chalice by Omar Ramsden and fellow Sheffield-born designer Alwyn Carr, pictured below, is of extra interest for its inscription.

A 1914 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland proved one of the principal attractions in a July 26 sale held by Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium).

An English delft drug jar offered by Great Western Auctions (24% buyer’s premium) in Glasgow was both a polychrome and a documentary piece.

It is with great sadness that we announce the death, at the age of 82, of Julian Dawson, our much-loved former colleague and partner, writes Philip Taylor of Gorringe’s.

Dictionary inscription is that of the crime novelist’s maiden name, adding to value.

Picasso produced more than 3500 ceramic designs and created 633 different ceramic editions between 1947-71.

Two very different lots from a Sussex sale are noted here: a German manuscript of Lenten sermons and the tale of a toy rabbit.

The game of golf (originating on the eastern coast of Scotland) and mauchlineware (the name given to a family of wooden souvenirs made in south-west Scotland over a period of a century) would seem ideal bedfellows.

A Venetian painting attributed to the great Canaletto (1697-1798) was offered at Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium) latest auction, selling for £300,000.

Estimated at £100-150, this pair of 4in (11cm) Chinese vases sold for an estimate-busting £39,000 at Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Lewes.

A painting of Venice’s Dogana da Mar painted from the Bacino di San Marco which has been attributed to Canaletto (1697-1768) will be offered at Gorringe’s of Lewes in the autumn.

Discovered lying unrecognised on a bookcase in a Sussex cottage, a unique edition of Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard will be offered at Gorringe’s this month with a £100,000-150,000 estimate.