This formerly unfashionable sector now appears to be on the up and on May 12, at Abbotts (10% buyer’s premium) of Campsea Ashe, it was interesting to see a scale blue coffee cup with rococo floral and exotic bird decoration and an intertwined handle soar past its £100-150 estimate to bring £1450.
This price put it alongside a number of standard pieces of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian furniture, but the top lot at this Suffolk sale was a table-top disc-playing musical box by Polyphon housed within a typically elaborate late Victorian walnut case and playing 19 3/4in (50cm) discs. It tipped over estimate to bring £2300.
Sold at £620 was a 19th century whalebone walking cane with a spiral carved shaft heightened with ebony inlay (some lacking), while a William IV drop-dial wall timepiece with a brass inlaid mahogany case and single-train fusee movement brought £1550.
Worcester blue now scales the heights
THE very earliest English porcelain has long held sway in the market, but one feature of Part I of the mammoth Zorensky Worcester collection sold by Bonhams in March was the high prices paid for some of the late 1760s and early 1770s underglaze blue ground tablewares.
