Sharing equal billing with vessels by Hans Coper and Lucie Rie were the more recent creations of the Scottish-born, London-based potter Jennifer Lee (b.1956). Her 9½in (23.5cm) stoneware vase titled Spangled, Amber, Coral and Speckled Bands had been acquired by the owner at the Galerie Besson Christmas exhibition in 1988.
Estimated at £10,000-15,000, it sold at £26,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) bettering by some distance the £13,000 (plus 24% premium) bid at Mallams Oxford in December 2016 for Lee’s Pale Pot, Speckled Emerging Rim from 1997.
Also improving on this previous record sum was Dark, Four Lichen Speckled Stripes – a shallow 14½in (37cm) diameter bowl that was made on camera for a biopic about Lee produced by her husband Jake Tilson in 1990.
Sold at a Galerie Besson show later that year, it had been offered at auction twice before: at Christie’s in 1998 (when Lee’s pots were £200-300 each) and again at Phillips in London in April 2012 where it was acquired by the present owner significantly under estimate at £1400. It sold last week at £17,000.
The sale took place on September 18.
British studio pottery will be the subject of a special feature in next week’s print edition of ATG.
