Decorative Art

This monumental and documentary Staffordshire blue and white transfer printed jug sold for $4800 (£4000) as part of Bonhams Skinner’s sale of British pottery and porcelain that ran online from Marlborough, Massachusetts, in the last days of 2022.

Found at a flea market, this tin-glazed earthenware mug sold for £12,000 (plus 19.5% buyer’s premium) at Claydon Auctioneers.

Eye-catching bijouterie attracted international buyers to Olympia Auctions’ (25% buyer’s premium) 320-lot European Works of Art sale.

Edward and Marilyn Flower embraced a huge variety of collecting enthusiasms.

A late 19th century novelty silver teapot offered at Halls (22% buyer’s premium) was made by US silversmith Gorham of Rhode Island.

A set of eight Minton Aesthetic movement bone cabinet plates topped the Bonhams Skinner (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) sale of British pottery and porcelain that ran online from Marlborough, Massachusetts, in the last days of 2022.

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

On January 15-16 Andrew Jones in Los Angeles will offer over 550 lots of paintings, furniture and works of art comprising the collection of Jack and Ellen Phillips of California.

Collectors of Staffordshire have noted a number of higher prices of late and further evidence of a more active market came when a pair of Victorian Staffordshire flatback figures was offered by Lacy, Scott & Knight (22.5% buyer’s premium).

More than 80 lots of early English and Dutch delftware are included in the collection of scholar, collector and author Margaret Berwind Schiffer to be offered on January 18 by Pook & Pook in Pennsylvania.

Two Herschel family-related historic items – a Royal Society King’s medal and a manuscript memoir – have changed hands at auction and in a private sale.

Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) ‘part II’ sale of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art at the end of last year included Chinese export porcelain from ‘the china store of a Somerset country house’.

Long before the auction in Krefeld began, it was clear that the price for a vase by Hans Coper would be way higher than the estimate of €8000.

The most famous of the many silversmiths in the German city of Hanau in the late 19th century was Neresheimer & Söhne.

While Ascot Gold Cups are not uncommon, the sight of two heading down the home straight to a rostrum finish on the same day was definitely rare.

Sir Michael Butler (1927-2013) was part of that post-war generation of ‘gentlemen in the professions’ who chose collecting as their primary leisure activity.

Engraving on Tiffany pepperette reveals the provenance as a princely present in 1879