Royal Worcester

British porcelain element of renowned US collection amassed in European salerooms comes to auction in London

Few furniture forms suffered a bigger crash in prices than the davenport.

A solitary English blue and white porcelain coffee cup emerged from the relative anonymity of a one-line catalogue description and a £120-180 estimate to sell for £4100 at Keys in Aylsham on July 24.

This huge porcelain breakfast service was made to welcome Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on their first visit to Scotland in 1842.

From 1932-34 Clarice Cliff was the art director for a project involving nearly 30 artists of the day to promote good design on tableware.

Having postponed the sale in November and again in January, Chorley’s finally got to sell an exceptional private collection of early English porcelain in Prinknash Abbey, Gloucestershire, on March 24.

Bonhams has a long tradition of single-owner sales devoted to noted collections of early English porcelain.

This previously unrecorded cylindrical mug is an addition to the known Worcester underglaze blue armorial pieces.

In the hierarchy of Royal Worcester fruit painters Frank Roberts (1857-1920) comes close to the top.

Pictured here are three good examples of Worcester hard-paste porcelain from the early decades of the 19th century – at which time there was a trio of factories operating in the city.

A coffee service decorated in the round by William Powell was one of a quartet of early 20th century Royal Worcester offerings to go way above estimate, largely fuelled by bidding from Vietnam, at Fieldings (20% buyer’s premium).

This 13in (32cm) Royal Worcester ewer decorated with owls by Charles Baldwyn (1859-1913) carries an estimate of $950-1050 at Broward Auction Gallery in Dania Beach, Florida.

A small Worcester mug painted with a rare blue and white pattern, c.1752-53, was among the stand-out sales during Jupiter Antiques’ latest exhibition, where it was offered for a price in the region of £4000.

The Starrs collection at Sotheby’s featured 25 reticulated vases or decorative objects produced by George Owen for Royal Worcester, most them purchased at auction in the early 1980s.

While typically it is the very earliest pieces of Worcester porcelain from the 1750s that excite the market, there is always great interest in documentary pieces.

A rare early Worcester plate, c.1752, painted in Chinese famille verte style is offered by dealer Robyn Robb at 'A Collectors’ Paradise', the annual group selling show of pottery and porcelain in St James’s. Offered for £9500, it features a bird perched on a flowering prunus tree.

A pair of Worcester dishes of so-called ‘Blind Earl’ form was a best-seller in the ceramics section that opened Dreweatts’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) spring sale.

The March Fine Sale at Keys in Aylsham, the first since a management buyout, includes both a group of Lowestoft rarities and pieces by other factories.

Among the most eagerly-contested lots in the Paul Reeves: An Eye For Design sale at Lyon & Turnbull was this set of Royal Worcester porcelain wall brackets, c.1865, allegorical of the four seasons.