Decorative Art

Kensington Church Street dealer Paul Reeves did a double-take at Sotheby’s earlier this month. As well as curating their March 20 mixed-owner decorative arts sale titled The Best of British, he also mounted a week-long selling exhibition of his own stock under the same title in their Bond Street Galleries.

AS part of this year’s 550th anniversary of hallmarking in Scotland, the National Museum of Scotland are hosting The Scottish Seminar from April 11-13.

It’s not just the London salerooms that are benefiting from the renewed enthusiasm for Russian works of art. The highlight of the sale conducted by David Lay of Penzance on February 28-29 was this late 19th century silver gilt and cloisonné enamel presentation vodka set.

Bottle specialists BBR have quickly uncovered what looks like a scam involving fake coloured ‘Chandler’ cottage inkwells.

The appearance on the market of a piece of ‘A’ mark porcelain at Woolley and Wallis’s Salisbury rooms on June 4 will be an exciting occasion for English porcelain buffs, especially those of an academic persuasion.

This rare medal issued to those involved in the 1916 Easter Rising is up for grabs in the collector’s auction at Plymouth Auction Rooms on February 16.

SILVER sales at the Woolley and Wallis’ Castle Street Salerooms – that last year totalled an impressive £1.9m – are tailored to catch the prevailing winds of the marketplace.

Born and bred in the environs of Birmingham, Sheila Hughes (1937-2006) first began collecting tiles in the early 1970s.

Offered in one catalogue, British Art pottery was the main thrust of two sales held by Woolley & Wallis staged at the end of last year.

Midlands auctioneers Fieldings and the Clarice Cliff Collectors’ Club (CCCC) are to join forces to hold sales of the avidly collected Art Deco pottery.

DEALERS are being asked to look out for the couple, pictured here, who attempted to steal a tea caddy from Patrick Sandberg Antiques in London’s Kensington Church Street on November 28.

THE National Museum of Scotland have announced that they are to host the largest exhibition of Scottish silver ever seen.

Collectors of Clarice Cliff have voiced their opposition to increased auctioneers’ charges with some refusing to attend Christie’s latest sale of the popular Art Deco pottery.

This heraldic ceramic charger by Alfred and Louise Powell, c.1920, is one of 140 examples of Cotswold Arts and Crafts on view at Simon Chorley Art & Antiques from October 13-21 as part of a loan exhibition titled Cotswold Craftsmen, 1894 to the present day.

Readers are advised to be wary of cut-price Whitefriars Drunken Bricklayer vases – they may be fakes.

It was catalogued as Bow c.1760 but this English porcelain coffee cup seen at Bamfords of Derby on July 25 was identified as belonging to a much rarer class of porcelain associated with Charles Gouyn and a short-lived London concern in St James’s.

FREQUENTLY, the most interesting object in someone’s garage is not the car.

In the 1950s, a farmer in Ingatestone, Essex found a tiny silver tag measuring just 3/4in (1.8cm) long on his farm. Shaped like a shield with a ring, one side was engraved LORD RICH above a stylised bird and the other featured a family crest.

Salisbury auctioneers Woolley & Wallis are to sell the collection of early English, Scottish and Irish silver belonging to the well-known London dealership How.

FOR more than a decade, Dorset saleroom Cottees have held biannual sales dedicated to Poole pottery. The most latest event had the sad distinction of being the first since the closure of the Poole Pottery just before Christmas.