Glassware

CHRISTIE’S (20.93/11.96% buyer’s premium) eschewed Art Nouveau altogether at their 20th Century Decorative Arts sale on May 20. This short outing was 83 per cent sold by lot (63 from 76) and 87 per cent by value, and raised a premium-inclusive €3.41m (£2.35m).

AFTER 15 years in the glass business, Cheshire organiser Patricia Hier knows her field well and it shows at her twice-yearly National Glass Collectors Fair, the next of which will be held at the National Motorcycle Museum, West Midlands on Sunday May 11.

FAMILY deaths and property downsizings still account for the majority of goods sold at auction, but lifestyle options are increasingly a factor. At Andrew Hartley’s sale the decision by a local vendor to part with her Chiparus figure to pay for an extension on her new home was almost as cutting edge as the Yorkshire man who ditched this collection of modern glass, some shown left, by Lancashire master blower John Ditchfield to pay for a holiday in the Far East.

English glass doesn’t generally compete with Continental for price, so anyone just looking at the top results from Sotheby’s mixed-owner auction held the day before their Japanese museum dispersal might have got the erroneous impression that home-produced material had played a low-key role.

19th century cameo glass was the strong suit in Sotheby’s sale of European glass from the Hida Takayama Museum of Art in Japan, held in their Bond Street rooms on December 19. Amongst a number of pieces that were particularly keenly contested by the room and the telephones was this 16in (41cm) high Thomas Webb vase which sold to a private buyer for £95,000 (plus 19.5/10% premium) after bidding first from the room then a battle between two telephones.

Wine-related silver is sitting at the top table of the market at present as the luxury boozing culture of hard-working businessmen props up the value of coasters, labels, corkscrews and funnels. But one area that has not benefited so much from the interaction of wine merchants and boardroom boys in recent years has been the standard Victorian decanter and claret jug.

Studio Glass 1960-2000 by Graham McLaren, published by Shire Publications. ISBN 073780527X. £4.99sb

EDWINA CURRIE may be the hot flavour of the month in Fleet Street, but she is hardly the toast of the Tories at the moment, and that may be the reason one of her former stalwarts has decided to part with this personal political memento.

USA: THREE pieces of Tiffany art glass and a Tiffany-type lamp from the Handel factory – sold by Doyles of New York on June 5 and by Skinners of Boston on June 22 – are featured here.

This rare 9in (23cm) diameter Venetian lattimo glass plate of c.1741, with iron red decoration of the Piazetta at Venice led Bonhams’ May 22 Continental ceramics sale when it was bid to £36,000.

LONDON: NOTTING Hill specialists in 20th century and contemporary design Themes and Variations hold an exhibition of Italian furniture and glass design at their gallery at 231 Westbourne Grove, London W11 from September 27 to October 19.

Over the years, car mascots have been used to advertise not merely the marque of the machine but also as good luck charms and were patriotic symbols during the First World War. In the mid-Sixties, car mascots were banned in the UK, being deemed a ‘danger to public safety’ because of the injuries they could cause in collisions. Since then, naturally, their collectabilty and value has steadily increased.

Glass from Islamic Lands by Stefano Carboni, published by Thames & Hudson in association with The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum. ISBN 0500976066. £40 pb

In the second major Internet shill bidding case, three people have been charged with running a scheme that boosted the sale prices of hundreds of pieces of Lalique glass auctioned on eBay.

The final ceramics auction in London last year was the glass sale held at Sotheby’s Olympia on December 18. The top priced lot at £50,000 was this damaged but rare North German covered goblet of c.1675, painted and signed by Johann Anton Carli of Andermach am Rhein with a scene of Christ and the woman of Samaria.

This Edinburgh sale of ceramics and glass on 30 November was notably well attended from the South of England, with dealers from London, Nottingham and Gloucestershire on the floor of the saleroom.

Thomas Webb was one of the two main British manufacturers to produce glass imitating rock crystal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and this 12in (30.5cm) high Marine vase is a substantial example of the type.

The more collectable the antique, the greater difference small details make to the final price. This general rule may explain the contrasting prices on these two glass bowls, all but identical in date, c.1800, form and origin, Cork or Waterford.

THIS 582-lot sale at Cumbria Auction Rooms on 25 June was quieter than the Carlisle rooms are used to, a fact which auctioneer Howard Naylor attributed to a strong pound and the way dealers are not buying second rate furniture adding: “It’s all down to quality and condition.”

The demand for the best of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s studio glass continued apace at Christie’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 86-lot Important 20th century Decorative Arts including Works by Tiffany Studios, June 7.