Decorative Art

Jason Jacques’ eponymous Manhattan gallery specialises in art pottery, especially works from the 19th century and Art Nouveau period and work by modern studio potters. It is exhibiting for the first time this year at the 'Winter Antiques Show' in New York.

The inaugural Design at Home sale, put together by Mark Hill for Dawson’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead, included a trio of pieces by ‘hot glass’ pioneer Sam Herman (b.1936).

The late Gerald and Brenda Flowerday caught the collecting bug in the late 1960s, igniting a keen interest in 18th century English ceramics that would last for the next 40 years.

MADAM – I have just seen Roland Arkell’s article on the discovery of a John Bartlam teapot (ATG No 2323). You may be interested to know that I used to own two of the previously recorded pieces of Bartlam porcelain which were originally believed to be Isleworth.

A hitherto unrecorded teapot attributed to a pioneering American porcelain factory has surfaced in the UK.

For more than a generation students of American ceramic history were taught that the first successful producers of porcelain in North America were Gousse Bonnin (1741-c.1780) and George Anthony Morris (1741/5-73), who ran the short-lived American China Manufactory in Philadelphia between 1769 and 1772.

The most desirable of all porcelain plaques produced by KPM in the late 19th century are those that leave little to the imagination. However, evidence of their continued popularity across many different subject matters came in the form of this example below.

While English ceramics feature in most provincial sales, November provided four auctions where the market could be looked at overall.

A child’s plate that celebrates a performing elephant which was bizarrely accused of murdering her keeper will be an unusual highlight at Towy Events’ last antiques and fleamarket of the year.

A full saleroom and a sell-out are not necessarily features you associate with traditional fields such as English drinking glasses but there are always exceptions.

Engraved 18th century glassware opened the sale at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on October 18.

Two big names dominated the 20th Century Decorative Arts sale held by Gildings (15% buyer’s premium) in Market Harborough on November 7.

For a relatively brief period during the 19th century, small silver boxes decorated with British landmarks found an eager following among the honeymooners and day-trippers of Georgian and Victorian England.

Modern designs are not yet booming in price and a mini-golden age remains something of a secret, but that could be about to change as the largest private collection of its kind goes on display in the US...

The sale of a comprehensive collection of Channel Islands silver in Guernsey provides a perfect opportunity to test the market temperature...

It is possible to have too much of a good thing in a narrow collecting market – a feature amplified when the leading player has left the field.