Auctions

Two leading regional auction houses – Lyon & Turnbull and Dreweatts – are trying new format sales this autumn in the hope of increasing demand for traditional European art and antiques. Both are creating room sets for viewing works.

British studio pottery, once the preserve of a small number of devotees, currently ranks among the strongest subsets of the art and antiques market. In the first element of a two-part feature, ATG considers the London market.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales, all sold below £900 including a view of St Peters in the Vatican by Scottish architect Basil Spence.

In the UK Huntley and Palmers and McVitie’s might be the brand names to trip off the tongue at the mention of the word biscuit. In France it is LU that first comes to mind.

They won’t show it on the rostrum and probably not with clients but auction house professionals do have a likeness for particular artists.

Gerard Sekoto (1913-93) is cementing his place as one of the most bankable names in the field of South African art.

The only known item of silverware to have survived from a lavish diplomatic gift presented to Louis XIV by the King of Siam has been acquired by the Palace of Versailles via a private treaty sale through auction firm Beaussant Lefèvre.

The profile of Scottish potter Jennifer Lee (b. 1956) received a £50,000 boost at the Royal Centre for Design in Kensington this summer when she won the Loewe Craft Prize 2018 with her abstract stoneware vessel illustrated here.

A portrait of a young Stuart woman, below, attributed to the Hungarian painter Johannes Priwitzer (fl.1626-35), topped the picture section in a two-day sale at Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) of Cambridge.

An American library on the history of computing formed by the late Erwin Tomash provided the new season’s first major sale.

The ‘British’ studio ceramics movement has long been backed by overseas talent. In addition to Lucie Rie, Hans Coper and Ruth Duckworth (nee Windmuller), who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, and Hamada Shoji’s collaboration with Bernard Leach, is the contribution of Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo (b. 1950).

A collection of fashion books and plates offered as part of an Exeter sale on September 12 was led at £1050 by an 1831, second edition of John Jackson’s The Improved Tailor’s Aera.

“A truly beautiful medal and a royal provenance make this something quite out of the ordinary. And, without hesitation, we can say that it is unique.” Stephen Fenton, specialist at Baldwin’s of St James’s, singled out a George IV accession medal as a highlight of the Peter Earthy collection.

Before finally achieving success in 1945 with The Pursuit of Love and then with Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford had published three novels. Two of these made record sums in a recent Stansted sale.