Decorative Art

Two single-owner collections of Martinware – each exceptional in their own way – will appear for sale on either side of the Atlantic this autumn.

There was drama at the Stonepark auction rooms of Rendells near Ashburton when this Isnik fritware tile was hammered down at £155,000 at their latest sale.

The highlight of Bonhams’ latest sale of Islamic and Indian art in London was this rare Gujarati mother-of-pearl artwork of early date and exceptional size.

After viewing events in London, Derbyshire and at the Antiques for Everyone fair in Birmingham, Fellows held their much-anticipated Blue John Sale in the Jewellery Quarter last week.

The collection of medals awarded to Ernest Shackleton, the most decorated of the Polar explorers, excelled at a recent Christie’s South Kensington sale.

The perpetrator of a chilling raid on an antiques shop in Honiton more than a year ago has been jailed.

Size and value often have an inverse relationship in the antiques world where small can be beautiful.

The Metropolitan Police has appealed to readers of ATG to contact them if they are offered two Georgian porcelain cups and saucer sets stolen from Osterley Park House, London in July.

Quite possibly the largest sale of Derbyshire blue john ever held is going under the hammer at Fellows of Birmingham.

An impressive collection of pictures, studio pottery, furniture, personal effects and letters has been consigned to auctioneers Mitchells of Cockermouth from the estate of Mary Burkett, former director of Abbot Hall art gallery in Kendal.

A group of 32 ancient gold ornaments have been returned to China following claims they had been illegally removed.

Paperweights from makers such as Caithness, Mdina, Selkirk, Wedgwood and Whitefriars go under the hammer at auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on August 7.

A silver medal awarded to a lifeboatman who rescued sailors from a sinking ship in hurricane-force winds off the Kent coast in 1891 is to be sold at Canterbury Auction Galleries.

Yellow-ground wares from the Vincennes soft-paste porcelain workshops are great rarities.

This rare Irish provincial silver punch strainer took £14,000 at Lawrences’ latest sale in Crewkerne. Dated to c.1740-60, it is struck twice for Joseph Johns, one of only a handful of silversmiths working in Limerick in the middle of the 18th century.

A previously unpublished book of ceramic designs that could shed new light on the work of Dr Christopher Dresser goes on public view for the first time during a three-day festival celebrating the life and work of the Victorian designer.

The two outstanding blue dash chargers offered at a recent sale held by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood in Exeter form part of a small but distinctive group of early 18th century delft dishes boldly painted with a variety of quirky bird, animal and figure subjects.

This Italian baroque bronze depicting ‘Ganymede and the Eagle’ by Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi (1656-1740) proved the highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s recent sale in Edinburgh.

This large Burmantofts faience plaque sold for £7000 at 1818 Auctions of Milnthorpe, Cumbria. The vendor, who bought it at a car boot sale for £20, was in the room to watch bidding surge way beyond a £400-600 estimate.

A 20-piece Nantgarw dessert service has sold for £20,000 at Campbells of Worthing. It was consigned on behalf of a titled lady.