Decorative Art

The firebreakers, circuitbreakers, alerts and tiers have made recent weeks feel chaotic. But dealers are carrying on regardless, devising new and different ways to sell their stock safely, whether online, through catalogues or in person.

A recent sale at Byrne’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Chester included 22 lustre wares by the Staffordshire art potter and chemist Bernard Moore.

More than 700 lots of Decorative Arts and Design spanning the 19th through to the early years of this century were offered for sale by Woolley & Wallis (25/12% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury over two days.

This William de Morgan six-tile panel from c.1880 will feature in a two-day sale, Decorative Arts: Design since 1860, at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on November 2-3.

Topping a 360-lot, £242,000 single-owner collection of Martinware and Moorcroft at Kingham & Orme (23% buyer’s premium) was a Robert Wallace Martin grotesque bird.

A large 13th century Persian lustre tile sold for £80,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at John Nicholson’s in Haslemere.

Dating to the second quarter of the 16th century, this stained-glass moon comes from northern France and is offered now by St James’s dealership Colnaghi.

Coadestone urns to this design were a personal favourite of company founder Eleanor Coade herself.

The 'Indian Sporting' series is the most celebrated of all Spode blue and white transfer-prints. This multi-scene pattern (there are 17 different designs in total) is based on aquatints by Samuel Howitt from 'Oriental Field Sports, Wild Sports of the East' by Captain Thomas Williamson, published in 1807.

Brought back to England by 19th century travel writer Richard Ford, a carved alabaster relief of the Madonna watching over Christ was the outstanding lot from a Gloucestershire country house offered at Mallams Cheltenham (22.5% buyer’s premium).

Pre-emption, the right of a French museum or institution to step in at the fall of the gavel to claim a lot at auctions staged in France for purchase at the hammer price, is a common occurence in such sales.

Made from paktong, a zinc, copper and nickel (or similar) alloy resembling silver, this c.1780 English travelling chalice, or cup, is modelled on drinking glasses of the period.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

This green patinated Cyclamen perfume bottle made c.1912 by René Lalique for Coty is part of a private Chicago collection of Lalique scent bottles that feature in Heritage Auctions’ Tiffany, Lalique and Art Glass sale in Dallas, Texas, on October 22.

Estimated at £7000-10,000, this very rare Bow model of a red squirrel, c.1760-65, sold for £20,000 at Bonhams’ (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) Fine Ceramics and Glass sale in Knightsbridge on September 29.

Chrissie and John Masters of the Design Gallery closed their shop in the Kent village of Westerham last year and now operate from their large showroom and warehouse nearby.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Two pieces of Moorcroft Pomegranate pattern made exceptional sums within a matter of 24 hours at the end of September. Both were early versions of the popular pattern and dated 1912 – the year William Moorcroft left his studio at James Macintyre to run his own factory in Cobridge.