Decorative Art

THIS year is the centenary of the foundation of the Georg Jensen silversmith workshop in Copenhagen, and to mark the anniversary the international Jensen specialists The Silver Fund hold an exhibition devoted to the work of one of the most renowned designers of the Jensen firm, Henning Koppel (1918-1981).

SPECIALIST organisers Oxbridge Fairs have made a change of venue for their third Cambridge Glass Fair. It will be held on Sunday February 15 outside the city at Chilford Hall Vineyard, Linton, which is also the site of fine art printers the Curwen Press.

There is no doubt that a weak dollar has contributed to a weaker UK majolica market – and yet low estimates for good pieces continue to stimulate bidding.

FRANCE: THE centenary of the Wiener Werkstätte, founded by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser in 1903, was commemorated in Vienna with various museum and gallery exhibitions, and two specialist auctions at the city’s main auction houses – the Dorotheum and Wiener Kunst.

Whether your penchant is for Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco or later 20th century design, and whether you are looking for examples in ceramic, glass, metallic, furnishing or sculptural form, Sotheby’s Olympia’s first Decorative Arts sale of 2004 promises its usual broad mix.

SOUTH London organiser Paola Francia-Gardner, who operates as P&A Antiques, is reviving her London Glass Fair which will be held on Sunday March 7 at the Chelsea Village Hotel, Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, SW6.

Sotheby’s, who have continued the tradition of separate works of art sales rather than combining them with Continental furniture, were actually able to serve up a double helping in December. Their usual mixed-owner offering on the 12th was preceded by a separately catalogued single-owner sale, called Treasures from the Rothschild Collection, of cameos and other antique jewels, gold boxes, silver-gilt, Limoges enamels and other objects made of precious materials.

Following the £620 sale of three Wedgwood Ravilious Coronation mugs in November, Tom Delaney of Mallams in Cheltenham recalled seeing a similar mug in a local house – this much rarer example transfer printed with a brick kiln together with a silhouette portrait of Stoke-on-Trent’s most famous son and the inscription Josiah Wedgwood Barlaston 1940 Etruria 1730.

A National Art Collections Fund grant of £37,500 has helped Ely’s Stained Glass Museum acquire an important early 13th century French stained glass panel of the bust of a king.

THE inscription Wilkes And Liberty No. 45 on this 9in (23cm) diameter Lambeth delftware portrait plate is as good as a date as it refers to the publication of the 45th issue of John Wilkes’ sharp-tongued periodical The North Briton.

THERE will be even greater English trade interest in one of the big success stories of recent years on the New York fairs scene – The New York Ceramics Fair. The fair, which has expanded from four to five days and will run at the National Academy of Design Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, from January 14 to 18 with a preview party on the evening of January 13.

ENGLISH POTTERY AND LATER ENGLISH CERAMICS: The mixed-owner, all-English sale held by Bonhams Bond Street on December 10 covered a much broader canvas than the Billie Pain collection. It ranged from early delftwares to 20th century Royal Worcester, with examples of most other ceramic categories in between.

Combining exotic subject matter with rarity value, figures of the Victorian lion-tamer Isaac Van Amburgh are among the most desirable of all Staffordshire portrait figures.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the arrival of Enlightenment philosophy in Puritan Scotland was the creation of clubs and societies that encouraged exuberant and outrageous behaviour in their members. The best known is the Beggar’s Benison.

This Women’s Social and Political Union medal for valour was awarded to Mary Richardson, the Canadian-born militant suffragette who, in protest at the re-arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst in March 1914, slashed the ‘Rokeby’ Venus with an axe at the National Gallery.

Prior to the sale of two record-breaking lots of Beswick at Bonhams’ October 28 sale – a colour trial Galloway Bull (£8800) and the Spirit of Whitfield (£9500) – the auction record for Beswick could well have been the £3500 paid for this rare figure at Potteries Specialist Auctions on October 22.

The object on which the keenest attention in the works of art world was focused this month was this 161/2in (42cm) diameter, 15th century parcel-gilt and silvered bronze roundel depicting Mars, Venus, Cupid and Vulcan.

The technique of Limoges enamelling, imitated by a number of historically-minded potteries in the second half of the 19th century, was championed at Worcester by Thomas Bott and then by his son Thomas John Bott.

Hand and Machine by Robert Welch, published by Robert Welch, ISBN 0951085506 £20hb, and available from Robert Welch, Lower High Street, Chipping Campden, Glos. GL55 6DY. Tel: 01386 840522.

DECANTERS of all types from the 18th century to the present are the subject of an exhibition running at the Broadfield House Glass Museum, Dudley, until April 18 next year.