Decorative Art

Collection amassed by Christie’s veteran Hugo Morley-Fletcher includes ‘special group’ of porcelain

When Anthony Bernbaum curated the exhibition Archibald Knox, Beauty and Modernity, a Designer Ahead of his Time at the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair in 2014, he was working in investment banking.

A closer look at the post-war appreciation of the great designer including exhibitions and auction landmarks

One of perhaps only two known ruby red versions of the Whitefriars Banjo vase sold for £17,200 in Devon on April 9.

A fine example of early 18th century Ottoman metalwork sold for many times its estimate at Stockholms Auktionsverk (20% buyer’s premium) on February 20.

Dr Stephen Martin first encountered Archibald Knox in a New York bookstore in 1990.

Created shortly after the 1830 Revolution, when Louis Philippe ruled as ‘king of the French’, the ‘Service de la Chevalerie’ was a great example of romantic historicism.

Aesthetic Movement designers and artists were in thrall to the peacock and its extravagant plumage.

A Tiffany Studios favrile glass window depicting a tree-fringed river leading to distant mountains took $450,000 (£347,000) at DuMouchelles (24% buyer’s premium) in Detroit, Michigan.

These two silver lots bear the mark of Henry George Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

Only a decade ago Carlton Ware designer Violet Elmer (1907-88) was a relative unknown compared with her contemporaries Clarice Cliff, Susie Cooper and Charlotte Rhead.

The Cotswold Art & Antiques Dealers’ Association (CADA) held its first London fair - Cotswold Art Antiques Chelsea - at Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King’s Road from March 20-23.

Shelley produced the geometric Vogue and Mode shape tea and coffee wares between 1930-32 - both the designs of Eric Slater (1902-84) who had worked at the factory since the end of the First World War.

New Zealand-born architect Keith Murray (1892-1981) began to make designs for Wedgwood on a commercial basis in 1933, joining a stable of designers that included Daisy Makeig-Jones and John Skeaping.

With this year marking the 100th anninversary of the exhibition that gave Art Deco its name, we report on the British designers whose creations appear on the market

Graham Slater (1927-2024) was fascinated by relics of Stuart and Georgian Britain. His wife Rosemary shared his passions, including his love of mudlarking, exploring the banks of the Thames for fragments washed up by each new tide.

The sale at Bellmans (25% buyer’s premium) in Billingshurst, West Sussex on February 17 included a small silver gilt rococo-style cream jug of a type that remains something of an enigma.