Bow Porcelain Factory

Buyers descend on the late George Withers collection in Somerset

The typical Clarice Cliff ginger jar measures just under 9in (22cm) high and around 6in (15cm) wide.

This pair of Bow porcelain figures of a cockerel and a hen sold for £7200 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Dore & Rees in Frome.

A broad mix of English and Continental pottery and porcelain was on offer in the latest dedicated ceramics sale held by Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury, a fair slice of it contributed by single-owner collections.

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

Traditional collecting fields still have an attraction when estimates are realistic, as proved by 18th century porcelain and pottery auctioned in the US

This rare Bow figure was spotted by English porcelain specialists at Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) two-day auction of Fine and Decorative Arts.

Estimated at £7000-10,000, this very rare Bow model of a red squirrel, c.1760-65, sold for £20,000 at Bonhams’ (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) Fine Ceramics and Glass sale in Knightsbridge on September 29.

The market for traditional British and Continental ceramics did not lie idle for three months. As ATG reports, a renewed enthusiasm greeted the first major UK sale since lockdown

The large collection of predominantly English ceramics offered by Stair Galleries from a New York collector included examples of 18th century porcelain from many of the major English factories.

After their intitial interest in Wedgwood, the Starrs went on to collect other examples of early English porcelain, some of which was keenly pursued in Sotheby’s sale.

Stair Galleries’ Fine Sale in Hudson New York on October 26-27 will include a major collection of English porcelain and pottery from a New York collector.

While dedicated sales of English and Continental ceramics are rarer beasts in the saleroom calendar these days, the traditional mixed-discipline regional sales are a repository for plenty of material from the main factories of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Building a collection can be the work of a lifetime. Selling is often a much quicker affair. But dealer Haydn Hansell of Juno Antiques is being far from hasty when it comes to the fine assortment of mostly 18th century porcelain he offers this year.

This Bow porcelain figure of Polyhymnia, the Greek mythological muse of sacred poetry, hymn, dance and eloquence, is among the pieces on offer at this summer’s 'Ceramics Mayfair'.

Catalogued simply as ‘a pair of English soft-paste porcelain models of parrots’, these rare 18th century figures by Bow sold at Thomas Watson in Darlington, County Durham, for £16,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) on May 15.

Documentary pieces of early English porcelain always command a premium.