Ceramics

Held over three pre-lockdown days on March 5-7, Evesham saleroom Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) auction was rich in the best of English and European decorative arts.

Contents of Palladian home in County Durham provide showpiece auction in Newbury

Sir William Whitfield and Andrew Lockwood shared a love of English blue and white transfer printed pottery and associated pearlwares and creamwares.

Responsible for the flowers at the Queen’s coronation, the society florist Constance Spry (1886-1960) is also credited with the ‘democratisation’ of flower arranging.

An unusual late Victorian silver pocket watch by Herbert Blockley of London sold for an unexpected £2800 at Potteries Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Stoke-on- Trent.

A cross-section of Asian art – Qing porcelain, Meiji Satsuma and Euro-Asiatic ivories – provided the prizes at Gorringe’s (21% buyer’s premium) spring sale held in Lewes.

A rare creamware transfer printed and painted beaker offered for sale by Mellors & Kirk (20% buyer’s premium) in Nottingham told a dark tale.

Maud O’Reilly (1886-1971), a key figure in Queensland’s Arts & Crafts movement and a student of the LJ Harvey school, showed her pottery at a number of British exhibitions in the mid 1920s.

A Linthorpe pottery dish designed for the Middlesbrough pottery by Dr Christopher Dresser sold online well over a £400-600 estimate for £4200 at Paul Beighton (17.5% buyer’s premium).

Association with the name boosts value as part of a sale dedicated to the poet.

The recent sale of Clarice Cliff, Art Deco & Design at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury included 27 works by the studio potter William Staite Murray (1881-1962).

The collection of Rozenburg pottery and porcelain belonging to the late children’s television presenter John Noakes (1934-2017) was sold at a recent auction in Dorchester.

A c.1880 Doulton Lambeth stoneware tobacco jar and cover was one of the pleasant surprises at a recent David Duggleby (18.75% buyer’s premium) sale in Scarborough.

With supply generally exceeding demand for Spode services – such was their abundance on tables of the 19th century middle class – prices at auction remain modest.

Among the most recognisable of all the famille rose porcelain designs produced in China for export to Europe are the so-called ‘Scotsmen’ or ‘Highlander’ plates.

Representing around 25 years of the artist’s output, the ceramic creations of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) represent a popular collecting field.

Overseas interest fuelled bidding for two of the foreign offerings at Bellmans’ (22% buyer’s premium) Interiors sale in Winchester on February 12.

Single-owner collection to form one of the highlights at Penman’s west London event