Decorative Art

It’s obviously a good season for Meissen hares.

A single-owner collection of Venini glassware led Roseberys’ (26/25/20% buyer’s premium) first Design auction of the year in West Norwood.

Drinking vessels in the form of an owl were as decorative as they were practical.

This silver and parcel gilt ‘Komai’ bachelor tea set by Elkington & Co sold for £16,000 (plus 23.5% buyer’s premium) at British Bespoke Auctions.

Staged in England from medieval times through to the early 19th century, bear baiting provided a popular theme in ceramic art in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Stoneware vases and jugs from the famed Martin Brothers also show their sense of style and character

Two English Delftware plates, described on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow a decade ago as “as rare as you can get”, went under the hammer at Woolley & Wallis (26% buyer’s premium) on February 5.

A rarity offered on the opening day of the sale held by Mellors & Kirk (24% buyer’s premium) in Nottingham on February 11-12 was this George III silver pear shape powder flask.

Elaborate cruet frames from the pre-revolutionary period stand out in a traditional sale selection

Shortly after the production of the first batch of his jasperware abolitionist medallion, Josiah Wedgwood sent a package to Benjamin Franklin with a covering letter dated February 1788 saying: “I embrace the opportunity to inclose [sic] for the use of your Excellency and friends, a few Cameos on a subject I am happy to acquaint you is daily more and more taking possession of men’s minds on this side of the Atlantic as well as with you.

A key work by the Anglo-German studio potter Hans Coper (1920-81) has been found in a garden in London.

An atypical entry to the March 4-9 sale at the Harwich antiquities specialist TimeLine is this gold medal struck in Philadelphia following the sinking of American steamship Casper, on December 23, 1928.