Decorative Art

Bonhams has announced the appointment of Ben Walker as head of modern and decorative art and design in the US.

The tragic story of the last of the imperial Russian family does not have an immediately obvious connection with a Yorkshire spa town but it is nonetheless a strong one.

A Picasso vase uncovered in a remote Cornish cottage has sold at auction in Plymouth for £2800.

The market for Lucie Rie ceramics continues to thrive. A new auction high for the doyenne of the British studio pottery movement was posted by Phillips in New York this month– the fourth occasion a record has been set in just two years.

A group of three Doccia porcelain dishes from c.1740-45 sold for £70,000 at a stellar sale at Cheffins in Cambridge.

A temporary export bar has been placed on a rare Wedgwood vase in the hope £482,500 can be raised to keep it in the UK.

Most collectors have a burning passion. For John and Patricia McKenzie, the items that fired their interest were vesta cases, the small portable boxes made to contain matches and keep them dry.

This stoneware vase designed by Henry Van De Velde for Reinhold Hanke was sold at Mallams in Oxford earlier today for £17,000.

This French porcelain hot water jug, or ‘pot à eau’ was made at the Vincennes factory in 1754, probably for the Dauphine Maria Josepha. The mother of King Louis XVI, who was guillotined during the French Revolution, she was an important patron of Vincennes.

A rare and recently rediscovered Irish Commonwealth/Charles II silver porringer sold today for £25,000 – five times its estimate – at Sworders’ auction in Essex.

The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Galleries in the Victoria & Albert Museum has re-opened with more than 500 objects on display, free to the public.

The quirky characterful and very British art pottery created by the late 19th/early 20th century artist potters Wallace, Robert and Edwin Martin is as popular in the US as in its country of origin.

Plymouth Auction Rooms made a surprise find on a recent visit to a remote Cornish cottage on the banks of the river Tamar. The auction firm was valuing a mixture of Cornish art and collectables at the address when it came across a Pablo Picasso vase.

A rare late 19th century Burmese silver bowl has come to auction having previously been used by the vendor’s mother as a waste paper basket.

Only a handful of pieces of Irish secular silver are known to survive from before the Restoration.

The Library and Museum of Freemasonry in London has revealed the latest addition to its collection.

The Modernism Museum Mount Dora in Florida is the proud new owner of a possibly unique Emile Gallé Allium floor lamp which sold for a hammer price of $260,000 (£167,740) or $310,000 including premium.

Smashing an auction record is one thing – doing it several times in the same sale is another.

In the run-up to the US election on November 8, Frances Allitt takes a look at the objects previous presidents borrowed, bought – and sometimes broke.