Silver & Silver-plated items

The Design sale at Christie’s New York (25/20% buyer’s premium) on December 13 included the return to the auction room of one of the famous series of electroplated teapots made by James Dixon & Sons, Sheffield, c.1879, to designs by Christopher Dresser.

The sale at Kingham & Orme (20% buyer’s premium) in Evesham on December 6-7 included the second instalment of the remarkable Shennan collection of silver mustard pots, this time featuring examples made in the reigns of George IV to Victoria (1821-1901).

It took just one sale to disperse a collection of pre-civil war silver painstakingly amassed in just over a quarter of a century at the rate of one piece a year.

Sotheby’s (25% buyer’s premium) sale of art and antiques from the Regency manor house Spetchley Park in Wychavon, Worcestershire, held in London on December 11, included a range of ‘kunstkammer’ objects amassed by the Berkeley family in the 19th century.

An atypical visitor to a recent sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium) was a Norwegian silver gilt brudekrone dating from the late 18th or early 19th century.

Matthew Barton (25% buyer’s premium) attracted international interest in this early-19th century German gold snuff box at his November 20 London sale.

The first event of the year for Galloway Antiques Fairs is its local event in Harrogate.

In 1906, three years after he had founded the Wiener Werkstätte with Koloman Moser, the multi-talented Austrian Josef Hoffmann designed a silver casket.

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

The 11 pieces of early-18th century Régence silver gilt from a dressing service pictured below were billed by Christie’s as “the last remnants of France’s most glorified stylistic and historically important period”.

This rare piece of Cork silver of Irish Republican interest sold for £4000 (plus 23% premium) at Sworders latest sale.

Exuding the exuberant confidence of pre-1914 Britain, this 21in (52cm) long silver table centrepiece, below, was a natural target for the London trade at the Anthemion (17.5% buyer’s premium) November 20 sale in Cardiff.

A pair of George III covered serving dishes made in London 1819 by Philip Rundell sold from the stand of Mary Cooke Antiques during the latest edition of the Winter Art & Antiques Fair in Olympia.

Differing echoes of the First World War attracted bidders at Dominic Winter’s (20% buyer’s premium) Cirencester auction in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday.

An impressive piece of neoclassical silver gilt with an impressive provenance, this George III trophy was consigned to Gerrards (18% buyer’s premium) by a vendor whose great-grandmother had apparently been given it ‘by royalty’.

In the first decades of the 19th century, watchmakers in many parts of Europe made a living by producing highly ornate watches and gold boxes, many of them for Chinese buyers.

Although the catalogue noted the rarity of a Queen Anne silver tazza and tankard having been together for more than 300 years, they were offered separately at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

The Little collection of early English silver is coming to Christie’s London on December 3. The auction comprises 26 domestic vessels from the Tudor and early Stuart periods that survived the tumult of the Civil War period. Some pieces are considered the last of their type in private hands.

This Irish silver two-handled footed cup will be included in the three-day, multi-discipline sale taking place at Thomaston Place Auction galleries from November 8-10 at Thomaston, Maine.