Pick of the week: Austere Moorcroft catches the eye

However, these pared-back Art Deco tube-lined designs were well received in Paris at the time. Moorcroft won a gold medal at the famous 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes – the event that gave Art Deco its name – and took further accolades at the international expo in 1937. A vase from the 1937 exhibition was offered at Fieldings of Stourbridge as part of the Decades of Design sale on March 16.

Measuring just shy of 20in (50cm), it assumes a swollen tapering form that is decorated in the salt glazed Waving Corn pattern.

To the base is the hand-painted mark Made for the Paris Exhibition 1937 plus a paper label for the Moorcroft Museum. Fieldings was selling more than 100 lots from the archives of W Moorcroft Ltd. The collection, still displayed in the original Liberty & Co oak cabinets that William Moorcroft originally used at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, is being thinned out to allow for the arrival of new pieces.

These duplicates or trial pieces, carrying paper labels for the Moorcroft Museum begun by founder William Moorcroft in 1913, were given affordable estimates from £30-1500.

Estimated at £500-800, this monumental vase took £4900 (plus 25% buyer’s premium inclusive of VAT) from a bidder via thesaleroom.com. A more typical example of the Waving Corn pattern, a 13in (32cm) high cylindrical form vase, sold at £220.

Moorcroft exhibition vase, with the base also shown, £4600 at Fieldings.

Another vase to generate serious competition from the same consignment was also an exhibition piece: a massive 2ft 3in (66cm) tapering baluster form decorated in a streaked flambe glaze with copper green and purple patches and spotting.

Devoid of Moorcroft’s trademark tube lining, it is again indicative of the more experimental wares of the 1930s, this one carrying a paper label for the Royal Academy Exhibition of British Art in Industry 1935.

Estimated at £400-600, it took £4600.