Lyon & Turnbull

It’s been a challenging couple of decades for classic English furniture but early winter has witnessed a few stars across the provinces, be it classic English or more exotic overseas material, to offer some gleams of encouragement.

Specialist Philip Smith, head of the 20th Century & Modern British Art departments at the London outlet of Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium), believes studio ceramics should be classed as art.

Group of works from the Cornish school underpins a positive Modern British offering

An archive of material relating to Porthia Prints, a short-lived company that harnessed the talents of a host of St Ives artists, proved a sell-out success at Lyon & Turnbull’s Modern Made auction in Fitzrovia, London. The 24-lot section of original designs and textiles came for sale ‘from an important St Ives artist’s estate’.

Instruction from author Fleming was thankfully not followed and first issue survives.

The 1961 International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery, organised jointly by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the Victoria and Albert Museum, was the world’s first international display of contemporary jewellery.

Some of the most striking 19th-20th century jewellery can often be found in design sales.

The Lyon & Turnbull Modern Made sale in London on November 14 includes an archive of material relating to Porthia Prints, the company established by St Ives artist Denis Mitchell and his brother in the 1950s.

A Linthorpe pottery sake bottle designed for the Middlesbrough pottery by Dr Christopher Dresser has sold for a record £17,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium).

A rare contrast to the Jacobite glass which has served Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) so well was a large mid-18th century goblet with a wheel engraved portrait of the victor of Culloden. It was inscribed 'His Royal Highness William Duke Of Cumberland'.

Freeman’s enjoys a strong Scottish connection, embodied in the firm’s current chairman, Edinburgh-born Alasdair Nichol, whose accent has diluted not one jot in the 25 years he has lived and worked in the US.

More reliable today than they ever were in their lifetime, the male line of the Stuarts attracted the familiar devoted following at the annual Scottish Silver & Applied Arts sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium).