Decorative Art

PEWTER always forms the first section of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer's premium) oak sales at Chester, and on September 9 enthusiasts, mainly collectors, were there as usual. Most had their eyes on the obvious star offering, the fine Charles II wriggle-work tankard, top right.

WITH only eight of the 300 lots bringing four-figure sums, the Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on August 25 was a fairly sleepy summer affair by usual standards at Oxford, but there were pieces of interest throughout for budget-conscious bidders.

WHILE Brian Haughton celebrates the botanical beauties of fine Chelsea, an altogether more prosaic, but nonetheless interesting, ceramic encounter is under scrutiny in Kensington Church Street.

GEORGE Jensen silver specialists The Silver Fund, who have shops in St. James’s, London and Madison Avenue, New York, have opened an outlet at Gump’s, San Francisco’s leading department store.

ALTHOUGH the 616-lot sale held by Thomson, Roddick & Medcalf (15% buyer’s premium) in Edinburgh took place back on June 23, the sale highlight merits recording. This was the finely worked silver gilt globe cup, right, probably made in Germany.

ONE of 11, generally very fine, British drinking glasses consigned from ‘a Highland lady’ to The Scottish Sale held by Bonhams (17.5% buyer's premium) in Edinburgh on August 18-20, was this 3 1/4in (8cm) high polychromed enamel firing glass, right, probably decorated c.1765 by member of the Beilby family of Newcastle.

SOME provincial auctioneers and London’s major houses batten down their hatches during the traditionally dead month of August, but for Scarborough Perry (15% buyer's premium) it was business as usual for their August 12-13 sale.

MIDDLESBROUGH specialist in Moorcroft, Carlton Ware and Linthorpe pottery Jim Shaw, better known as Appleton Antiques, has given up his stands at the Red House Antiques Centre, York and The Ginnel, Harrogate, although he keeps a toehold in the latter, renting a cabinet.

THE biggest surprise in the July 17 sale held by Skinners of Boston was provided by a pair of Chinese chairs, but the pair of 3 7/8in (10cm) high, Wedgwood & Bentley blue jasper portrait medallions of c.1779 right, depicting William Penn & Benjamin Franklin, also did well.

HERTFORDSHIRE organiser Paul Bishop, who founded Oxbridge Fairs to mount specialist glass events, holds his fourth Cambridge Glass Fair at Chilford Hall Vineyard, Linton, Cambridgeshire this Sunday (September 12) and, with 100 tables, it is fully booked.

INNOVATIVE Oxfordshire dealers The Country Seat may be best known as furniture specialists, but they are increasingly turning their focus towards 19th and 20th century design.

DEVON, with its old wealth and influx of well-heeled retired couples, can provide a rich hinterland, but summer can still mean a bit of a scramble to find enough quality material to offer at Bearne’s (15/10% buyer's preimum) fine quarterly sales at Exeter.

Pot-Lids and other Coloured Printed Staffordshire Wares: Reference and Price Guide by KV Mortimer, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club, ISBN 1851494383, £35hb. ALL the literature on pot lids is now well over 20 years old – the ACC’s last book on the subject, The Price Guide to Pot-Lids and other Under-Glazes, was published in 1970 and again in 1980.

INTEREST from UK furniture dealers in these Channel Islands sales may have waned of late, but Martel Maides (15% buyer's premium) reckon they are benefiting from Jersey’s lack of a permanent fine art saleroom (although the annual Bonhams sale at St Helier comes round this month).

THE most topical entry in Clevedon Salerooms (15% buyer's premium) large 1200-lot outing on June 17-18 was a collection of Olympics memorabilia. Entered by descendants of the 1908 gold medal winning water polo player Thomas H. Thould, the group fetched £3300.

Victorian China Fairings: The Collectors’ Guide by Derek H. Jordan, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club, ISBN 1851494464, £35hb. WITH a book dedication by the author to “all my non-collecting friends who I have bored silly over the years”, Derek Jordan has a massive private collection of these little Victorian/Edwardian china ornaments with their droll comments on life, buying his first three fairings at the Folkestone Antiques Fair.

RIGHT: although an undeniably rare beast, the super-cute sleeping Wemyss piglet, just 6 1/2in (16.5cm) long, has made a number of appearances at Sotheby's Gleneagles over the years.

A RELATIVELY quiet day for S.J. Hales (15% buyer's premium) who specialise in English ceramics, but the August 4 sale still attracted plenty of Staffordshire specialists as usual.

GOOD standard furniture sold well enough at Mitchell's (15% buyer's premium) July 15-16 sale and included a locally made Jacobean piece.

THE Lambert Collection of British art pottery and furniture comes under the hammer at Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 22.