Decorative Art

A rare Iznik pottery tile made for the Çini li Hamam bathhouse during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent sold for £195,000 at Lyon & Turnbull.

What is touted as the UK’s largest private collection of antique apothecary objects will be sold by the Cotswold Auction Company as part of a sale in Cirencester on June 24-25.

Doulton designs consigned by a descendant demonstrate the ceramicist’s great glaze achievement

In 1962, Lord John Hope, the Minister of Works in the Macmillan government commissioned David Mellor (1930-2009) to ‘supply silver you have designed to every British embassy in the world’.

Two pieces of pre-war Orrefors glass were consigned from a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan estate for sale at DuMouchelles (24% buyer’s premium) in Detroit.

Pictured below are three fine silver and enamel cigarette cases dating from the turn of the 20th century sold at auction in recent weeks.

The popular dealer amassed an impressive array of items assayed in the city

From the late 18th century, Birmingham was the centre for the making of ‘toys’ – small decorative objects including boxes, nutmeg graters, buckles, caddy spoons, vinaigrettes and rattles, fashioned from silver.

The many models of anthropomorphic primates that proliferated British decorative arts in the 1860s typically reference Charles Darwin’s provocative and often lampooned 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection', first published in 1859.

This 2ft 6in (75cm) high five-light candelabrum hallmarked for Sheffield 1844 and the firm Creswick & Co (Thomas, James and Nathaniel Creswick) is both an impressive example of early Victorian table silver and a memento of the heroic era of polar exploration.

Spoons are among the very few pieces of English silver surviving from the period of Wars of the Roses.

A lot offering a Shanghai Municipal Jubilee Medal, November 17, 1893, proved so appealing that it sold at five times the top estimate.

Recently, I decided to retire from the antiques trade, though I remain connected – much like Peter Cameron said in a recent issue of ATG: “true antiques dealers don’t truly leave the trade". I still subscribe to Antiques Trade Gazette and occasionally consider online purchases.

This bright-eyed and bushy-tailed claret jug designed in 1882 by Alexander Crichton sold at a hammer price of £36,000 at Tennants of North Yorkshire.

Like many English joiners of his time, not a great deal is known about the private life of Gerrit Jensen.

All too often kind words are expressed about someone only when one learns of their sad demise.