Decorative Art

Example made in Gujarat or Goa goes to a Portuguese buyer

Among the countless designs that Josef Hoffmann, the Viennese architect and multi-talented driving force behind the Wiener Werkstätte, executed during his long career was a bowl with two scroll handles, sometimes described as a centrepiece.

The Gordon Russell Design Museum in Broadway, Worcestershire ran a successful campaign to purchase a Lygon brass alms dish by the English designer and craftsman that came to auction in West Sussex last week.

Evans family collection of William De Morgan pottery brings keen interest at Martel Maides in St Peter Port

Just 30 figures from single owner collection offered in Cheshire saleroom rack up nearly £60,000 total

A remarkable silver oyster tureen with cover and stand hammered for $26,000 (£19,150) at Leland Little (20% buyer’s premium) in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Any association fair has the unenviable task of attempting to be all things to all members, of attracting bigger name galleries while remaining accessible to sole operators, of maintaining the quality aesthetic that visitors expect while keeping stand costs affordable.

A pair of 7in (17cm) Sèvres porcelain bottle coolers (seau à bouteille) sold for £6000 as part of Tennants’ (24% buyer’s premium) recent Country House Sale.

Stand-out decorative items by named artists with interesting back-stories were in demand at the latest The Decorative Fair in Battersea.

The owners of Kent’s Teapot Island museum are selling their collection of more than 8500 novelty teapots, thought to be the second-largest group in the world.

I read with interest about the Carlton Ware Babylon pattern coffee set that has recently sold at Peebles Auction House for £7700, a great price indeed for recent times (Pick of the week, News Digest, ATG No 2711).

The long-running Chester Fair is now the Cheshire Decorative Antiques & Art Fair, a name chosen to underline its position as the only major antiques fair in the county.

Sarah Harris, proprieter of Breckland Antiques, is a specialist in all aspects of the British Arts & Crafts movement. She will be standing at the Northern Antiques Fair in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, held from October 9-12 (previewed last week in ATG No 2711).

A rare snuff box commemorating the escape of Charles II from Parliamentary forces after the Battle of Worcester was the highlight of Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood’s (26% buyer’s premium) silver and jewellery sale in Exeter.

Sigismund III Vasa (1566-1632) was a man of many parts. His father was King John III of Sweden; his mother Catherine was the daughter of King Sigismund I of Poland.

Vase and clock produced around the same time nevertheless display significant design variation