Decorative Art

AS WELL as their specialist musical instruments and clock specialist sales, the Bath auctioneers Gardiner Houlgate have been holding pioneering bi-annual sales devoted to Clarice Cliff and decorative arts sales for the past eight years.

Greater levels of trade and private interest in what were fairly routine silver outings at Christie’s South Kensington and Bonhams Knightsbridge on September 9 gave specialists at both houses cause for optimism.

John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey-Oswald – political assassins have been among the most vilified men in American history. However there is something distinctly British about the strong sympathy vote received by the one man who has successfully done away with a Prime Minister of this country. The Staffordshire potters even made a jug to mark his passing.

At just over $12m (including premium) US auction house Doyle New York made a significant contribution to the series of Asian Art sales held in Manhattan last week with their September 16 auction of the F. Gordon Morrill collection of Chinese porcelain. They found buyers for 82 per cent of the 115 lots, but far and away the star attraction was this large 141/2in (37cm) high Yuan dynasty blue and white pilgrim flask of c.1345.

CHISWICK-based dealer in studio pottery, Joanna Bird, presents her seventh annual exhibition at Browse & Darby, 19 Cork Street, London W1, from September 15 to 20, centred on the work of eight leading contemporary potters, Elizabeth Fritsch, Julian Stair, Edward Hughes, William Plumptre, John Spearman, Daniel Fisher, Michael O’ Brien and Danlami Aliyu.

THE Wallace Collection’s exhibition From Palace to Parlour, A Celebration of 19th century British Glass may not shed any new academic light on the subject but it draws attention to a period often ignored by traditional glass collectors: the 19th century. “The 19th century has been completely overlooked,” says independent scholar and glass consultant Martine Newby who curated the exhibition on behalf of the Glass Circle.

Monart glass specialist and collector Ian Turner is a familiar name to many in the trade, having devoted the last two decades to buying and researching this vividly coloured 20th century Scottish art glass. In addition to building a 260-piece collection, he has also contributed to several books including Ysart Glass, edited by Frank Andrews, 1990.

IT WAS the Sotheby’s sale of July 10 that included the largest and most significant portion of Churchilliana on offer this summer, but it was not the only sale to serve the market, as this report shows.

IN A month when keen collectors and scholars of glass – that ancient but sometimes-overlooked fraternity – are coming into the picture in a big way, glass dealer turned specialist fairs organiser Paul Bishop is holding his second Cambridge Glass Fair.

Two leading Kensington Church Street glass dealers are to hold their own selling show, describing it as “a ground-breaking exhibition shining a light on a hitherto unrecognised area of British cut glass”.

Goldsmiths Hall, the home of the venerable City of London Livery Company, is the venue to check out the latest in contemporary silverware and jewellery next month. Billed as ”the Chelsea Flower Show of the silver and jewellery world” and celebrating its 21st anniversary, the fair will feature 90 exhibitors representing the cream of British talent from these fields with a wide range of work spanning cutting edge to more traditional designs.

SCOTTISH provincial silver is one of the only consistently strong areas of the silver market and, if recent sales in Edinburgh are anything to go by, Banff silver is what everyone wants.

Italian Medals – c.1530-1600 by Philip Attwood, British Museum Press. £250 hb, two volumes. ISBN 01741 08618. Available from Oxbow (+ 44 [0]1865 241249) or Thomas Heneage Art Books, 42 Duke Street, London SW1 6DJ (+ 44 [0]20 7930 9223.

DUELLING pistols often attract considerable interest and one of the top lots in this 1162-lot Welsh sale at Anthemion on 16 July was a pair of pistols by Wogden & Barton, 1795-1803.

A successful sale isn’t always an instant transaction and one of the more notable features of exhibiting at a fair is follow-on business. This can often take some time to materialise but is nonetheless satisfying, especially when it produces a particularly pleasing conclusion, as was the case with this pair of 18th century Sèvres vases à compartiments, pictured right, which London dealer Robert Compton-Jones of the Woollahra Trading Co. took to the Paris Biennale last September.

With only seven others known to exist, this pair of 1750s Worcester gugglets was destined for success when offered on July 22 at Bristol Auction Rooms. Acquired fairly recently by a local private source, the 9in (24cm) high pair were originally estimated at just £400-600.

S.J. Shrubsole, the well-known silver dealership of New York, have pleaded guilty to failing to collect around $75,000 in city and state sales taxes on over $900,000 worth of goods. The gallery also pleaded guilty to falsifying tax returns filed with the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. They have now paid $150,000 in fines relating to the plea.

Clarice Cliff and Moorcroft: THE majority of Clarice Cliff’s colourful and highly decorative pottery may be financially accessible to large numbers of enthusiasts for three-figure sums, but the top end of the market is driven by a relatively small number of wealthy buyers.

In addition to those almost ubiquitous geographical crests, the WH Goss factory embellished their finely potted miniature wares less frequently with images of royalty and nobility, flags, buildings, verses and flora and fauna.

Some huge prices were paid for Du Paquier porcelain last week at Christie’s when the auctioneers offered a single-owner collection of predominantly Austrian and German porcelain in their July 7 sale of Continental ceramics.