Decorative Art

A specialist fair in London that was put together at top speed in under two weeks, with Christmas in the middle, has been judged a resounding success by the organiser Two C’s Fairs.

Stourbridge firm Fieldings began the new year in some style with the sale of a cameo glass plaque by George Woodall for £84,000.

Alan Blakeman, lifelong rock climber and founder of niche business BBR Auctions in Elsecar, near Barnsley, had a good 2017.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).

A long-running biannual specialist fair has been renamed and will launch its first edition in London under a new organiser this month.

Two pre-Christmas sales, one at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury and one at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford, highlighted the move of studio pottery from esoteric niche into the mainstream market.

More Channel Islands silver to add to over 250 pieces dispersed as part of the Paint collection at Martel Maides earlier this year came to auction recently.

The late Gerald and Brenda Flowerday caught the collecting bug in the late 1960s, igniting a keen interest in 18th century English ceramics that would last for the next 40 years.

Jason Jacques’ eponymous Manhattan gallery specialises in art pottery, especially works from the 19th century and Art Nouveau period and work by modern studio potters. It is exhibiting for the first time this year at the 'Winter Antiques Show' in New York.

MADAM – I have just seen Roland Arkell’s article on the discovery of a John Bartlam teapot (ATG No 2323). You may be interested to know that I used to own two of the previously recorded pieces of Bartlam porcelain which were originally believed to be Isleworth.

A hitherto unrecorded teapot attributed to a pioneering American porcelain factory has surfaced in the UK.

The most desirable of all porcelain plaques produced by KPM in the late 19th century are those that leave little to the imagination. However, evidence of their continued popularity across many different subject matters came in the form of this example below.

For more than a generation students of American ceramic history were taught that the first successful producers of porcelain in North America were Gousse Bonnin (1741-c.1780) and George Anthony Morris (1741/5-73), who ran the short-lived American China Manufactory in Philadelphia between 1769 and 1772.

While English ceramics feature in most provincial sales, November provided four auctions where the market could be looked at overall.

Engraved 18th century glassware opened the sale at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 18.

A full saleroom and a sell-out are not necessarily features you associate with traditional fields such as English drinking glasses but there are always exceptions.