Decorative Art

Christie’s New York are offering the 1962 Nobel Prize gold medal awarded to Dr James D. Watson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists.

A possibly unique electroplated coffee pot, designed by Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) and made by James Dixon & Sons in Sheffield, proved the highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s sale auction ‘Decorative Arts: Design from 1860’ when it was knocked down for £80,000.

This Fabergé enamelled silver and hardstone cigarette box sold for £46,500 at the latest sale held at Nicholas Mellors of Newark.

It has taken just over a month for the Art Fund’s £2.74m appeal to save the Wedgwood Collection to reach its target. It will now be gifted to the V&A but will stay in situ at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, near Stoke.

Soon after ATG reported that the public had contributed £700,000 in a matter of days to help the final push to save the Wedgwood archive, the news came through that close to £2m had been raised. Some £1.3m was donated in just four days.

The quarterly auction of silver and plated wares held by Fellows in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter on September 22 included a family collection of eight apostle spoons formed several generations ago.

The Christopher Foley collection of British commemorative medals will be sold at Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis on October 16. The sale is the most comprehensive of its type seen for a century or more.

With the Scottish referendum only weeks away, there could hardly be a better time to offer a replica of a reliquary which for centuries was a powerful symbol of Scotland’s national identity.

Highlights from the Coslov collection of English majolica will be on show in London next month prior to their sale at Freeman’s in Philadelphia on October 7.

There are signs that last year’s publication of ‘The Della Robbia Pottery’ by Peter Hyland has given a lift to the market for the distinctive wares produced in Birkenhead by Harold Rathbone and Conrad Dressler between 1894-1906.

In the days when muzzle-loaders were the only choice for shooters, the one essential accessory was a flask for the powder. Many a battle or huntsman’s quarry has been lost through poorly kept powder.

It’s only recently in the decade-long boom in Chinese works of art that Far Eastern buyers have come to appreciate once again the merits of Export silver. Once a neglected area, academic interest has been piqued in the subject as the marketplace moves in leaps and bounds.

A massive Coalport Feldspar porcelain jug painted with a study of Earl Spencer’s Durham Ox in a parkland setting has been bought by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

Discovered at a regional valuation day held in Shropshire by Hansons of Etwall, this Tiffany and Co. silver and mixed-media tea caddy had been a wedding gift and had remained in the family of the vendor since the 1920s.

A strong selection of Tudric (pewter) and Cymric (silver) creations by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co was the focus of keen bidding at Bonhams’ decorative arts from 1860 sale in New Bond Street.

Seventeenth century Dublin trefid spoons are extremely scarce. Last year a single rat-tailed example by Andrew Gregory, 1685, sold for €9000 at Adams of Dublin.

English cameo glass was the star of the show at Woody Auction’s second dispersal from the collection of Dr Ernest and Karin Rieger held in Wichita, Kansas.

Knocking others off their perch, Salisbury’s Woolley & Wallis improved upon their own auction record for Martin Brothers with the £75,000 sale of this bird jar to Gloucestershire British art pottery dealers AD Antiques.

The year 1737 was something of an annus horribilis for George II.

A rare example of 18th century Jamaican silver was a highlight of the latest decorative works of art sale held by Matthew Barton of Blythe Road, Olympia.