Ceramics

The sale of pottery and porcelain from the Minton Museum Collection took place at Bonhams Bond Street on July 23. The 379 lots realised £714,025 net against an estimate of £400,000.

English ceramics may have been the junior partner to their Continental cousins in lot terms at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) on June 27, making up just 81 of the 230 lots, but they provided the two highest prices.

“Full of fire and and zealous faculty breaking its way through all conventionalism to such truth as it can conceive” – thus was the forthright opinion of John Ruskin on seeing George Tinworth’s collection of eight terracotta panels of biblical scenes at the 1875 Royal Academy Exhibition.

English blue and white pottery may not be the most fashionable ceramic collecting area, but the 144-lot Patricia Davis collection offered in the June 11 morning session at Sworders Essex rooms suffered only 22 casualties.

The oriental inspiration of this 51/2in (13cm) high Meissen teapot of c.1728 extends not only to its finely painted figural decoration by J G Horoldt but also to its peach-shaped form. At £78,000 it made the highest price in a single-owner collection of Meissen porcelain held at Christie’s on July 8.

SALES IN PARIS – THE LAFOND COLLECTION: A RAREFIED array of pharmacy jars formed the basis of the former Louis Lafond Collection presented at Briest on June 4. Lafond (1880-1950) was a practising chemist whose unremarkable personal history epitomises that of the dedicated, middle-class, often anonymous buying public that continues to flourish in France and, especially, at the Hôtel Drouot.

THERE were few out and out stars at the Amersham Buckinghamshire rooms on 6 June but the buyers were keen enough to support the auctioneers’ contention that, with more widespread holidays and the Internet, it is only vendors who are cautious about midsummer sales.

A zeal for collecting in an age of double glazing has created a strong market for pottery window rests, which have been freed from the domestic drudgery of keeping sash windows open and elevated to the mantelpiece as decorative works of art in their own rights.

With their lively if somewhat comic subject matter, these so-called ‘Scotsmen’ famille rose plates, 18th century, always receive a warm welcome. But the comic depiction of this kilted couple of the 42nd Foot Regiment belies the fate that lay in store for them.

This quartet of Meissen white figures from Augustus the Strong’s Japanese Palace was a centrepiece of the June 13 evening sale from Longleat, contributing £2.9m to the overall total.

Shanklin Auction Rooms have taken what they believe to be a record price for a Worcester teapot. The Isle of Wight auctioneers expected a bid of around £1000 for the rare c.1760, 5in (13cm), first period Worcester pot (pictured) and were amazed to see it knocked down to a London dealer for £11,000 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium).

AT the time it was produced – 1930/31 – the geometric design of a Shelley tea set with triangular handles was far from popular and speedily withdrawn. Seven decades on, with Art Deco a buoyant area and Shelley becoming more in demand by collectors, the scarcity of the pattern was a considerable addition to the appeal of a tea set for six offered at Stride’s 1000-lot West Sussex sale.

BIRMINGHAM-based Centre Exhibitions, headed by Fran Foster, launch a new series of fairs from October 18-20 when the first Ceramics For Everyone Fair is held at The Grandstand, Worcester Racecourse.

SOME of the regular buyers at this 424-lot dispersal at BBR Auctions on 28 April deemed it the “best selection yet” even though it had fewer Prattware pot lids and less blue and white Cornishware than usual. But this was made up for with an unusually large number of pie funnels and a good range of kitchen utensils and cream pots.

There was a French auction record for Sèvres under the Ferri (17.94%/ 11.96% buyer’s premium) gavel at Drouot on May 24 when the large Empire period fuseau vase, shown here, was offered for sale.

TILES: Tiles seem to be the new hot collecting area in British decorative ceramics. Following on from a sellout exhibition at Richard Dennis’s shop in Kensington last year, Bonhams held a sale of ceramic design in January that featured a large collection of De Morgan tiles which were pursued by a determined band of private collectors to prices that rivalled those of the pottery’s striking hollowwares.

Mention rare animals to a Lowestoft resident and you are likely to be directed to Suffolk’s only wildlife park on the outskirts of town, where African lions and ring-tailed lemurs roam the saltmarshes.

This Chamberlains Worcester yellow ground beaker-shaped vase c.1802, painted with a figure emblematic of Fame and supporting a miniature of Admiral Lord Nelson to commemorate the battle of the Nile, appeared at Law Fine Art on May 22 with an estimate of £4000-6000, having been consigned by a “Middle England” collector.

PRE 1921 the Poole pottery firm, one of the most innovative of the 20th century British potteries, was known as Carter & Co. Headed up by Jesse Carter, the firm produced very few domestic wares focusing instead on tiles and architectural and garden ceramics.

Clarice Cliff: The latest auction foray into the colourful world of Clarice Cliff at Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), May 2, did not perform as well as previous specialist sales. Buyers were only found for 62 per cent of the 302 lots compared to their last Clarice Cliff outing in November 2001 that boasted a higher 72 per cent take-up for the 430 lots.