Realistic estimates keep pieces moving in the closeknit world of Clarice Cliff

Bonhams specialist Johanna Friedwall Rhodes reckons around 25 such collectors and dealers – predominantly from the UK but also some from Australia – routinely secure the best works but, unlike most serious buyers, they do not like to bid against each other at
auction.

Consequently, unless a work is exceptional there tends to be relatively few bidding battles for the best pieces.

For the more standard fare, guidelines need to be pitched attractively to ensure a reasonable take up by lot. “I tend to be realistic in setting estimates especially with the run-of-the-mill pieces,” said Ms Friedwall Rhodes.

She seemed to have succeeded with her latest outing of Cliff and Moorcroft held at Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) on June 24, which recorded an 82 per cent selling rate by lot with most of the Cliff wares going within their conservative guidelines. The entire 271-lot auction totalled £153,325.

There may not have been any record-breaking Cliff entries but the bidding by a UK collector for the top lot illustrates how much this market has developed over the last three decades.

The Orange House meiping vase which fetched £5500 had been bought by the vendor for £3 as part of a job-lot from Putney-based auction house Lloyds in 1968.

This fortuitous purchase pre-dated the major exhibition of the potter’s work in Brighton in 1972 that triggered collectors’ interest in Clarice Cliff.

The meiping is a good shape to display bold floral patterns such as Red Gardenia and an example in perfect condition went to the same bidder at £2100.

Like meiping vases, Lotus jugs are sought-after Cliff forms and a jug decorated with the fairly unusual Sunray (Night and Day) design and in good condition went slightly above its upper estimate selling to a UK collector-dealer at £3800.

Next up was a Coral Firs spill vase, shaped as an ocean liner, which tripled its conservative low estimate, selling at £2400 to the British collector who tendered the winning £14,000 for a similar spill vase painted with the more sought-after Ocean Liner design in Bonhams Bond Street’s November 2002 sale.
By contrast to the small size of the market for top-end Cliff, there is a wider pool of predominantly private UK buyers for the better-quality pieces of Moorcroft. This tends to lead to healthier competition at auction.

“There are more private collectors with money who can compete with the dealers,” said Johanna Friedwall Rhodes.

The demand for the best quality Moorcroft was reflected in the buoyant trade and private bidding on a private UK collection of 34 Moorcroft miniatures consigned by relatives of the deceased collector who had bought mainly at auction from the early 1980s to the late 1990s.

“There were some examples I had never seen before,” said Johanna Friedwall Rhodes. One of the auction firsts for the specialist was a Macintyre stipple-glaze vase decorated with blue poppies on a mint green ground, 2in (5.5cm), printed Macintyre mark and signed W.M.des. Its squat urn shape and decoration was an unusual combination. Estimated at £1700-1900, it was pursued to £3600 by an Irish dealer – one of the most prolific miniature buyers at the sale.

Elsewhere, a slender gourd-shaped miniature vase, 31/3in (8.5cm), decorated with purple and yellow pansies on a pale olive ground, fetched £3000 – a strong price given that Ms Friedwall Rhodes reckoned a large example, around 12in high, would probably sell at £2000-3000.

All bar two of the 34 miniatures found buyers, with most selling at or above their attractively-pitched estimates, such as a squat vase, Hazledene, 3in (7.5cm), with good colours and a cleanly-fired glaze, which doubled expectations at £2600.

There were few exceptional Moorcroft entries outside of the single-owner dispersal, with the early William Moorcroft pottery bringing the biggest prices.

A pair of flambé vase, Anenomes, from the 1920s or 1930s brought £2000 while a Brown Chrysanthemum teapot from the same period fetched £2300.