The lamp base was actually unique, potted as a prototype rather than a retail model, and collectors of Poole could not have asked for a better provenance. The vendor’s father-in-law worked at the pottery alongside the designer of the lamp base, Guy Sydenham. He purchased it as a wedding present for his daughter and his son-in-law, at a cost of £27.
It was a radical gesture at a radical time, and the vase was rejected by the bride, having failed to fit into the colour scheme of her new home. This was hardly surprising, the lamp base strikingly mottled with an acid yellow glaze and featuring two orange glazed oval ‘cut-throughs’.
However Poole pottery collectors travelled from the South Coast to pay homage to Sydenham’s creation and a pilgrim from Bournemouth
tendered the winning bid of £5500.
Poole of light attracts collectors to Billingshurst
Such is the ubiquity of lamp bases that have been converted from vases that rarely does one encounter a genuine collector’s item in this field, but this abstracted stoneware example produced for the Atlantis range of Poole pottery in the early 1970s, was a refreshing discovery. consigned to the Applied Arts sale at Sotheby’s South (15/10 per cent buyer’s premium) near Billingshurst on March 27.
