Ceramics

MADAM – I thought your readers might like to know that grant funding is available for anyone doing research that includes printing on British ceramics.

A specialist fair in London that was put together at top speed in under two weeks, with Christmas in the middle, has been judged a resounding success by the organiser Two C’s Fairs.

Alan Blakeman, lifelong rock climber and founder of niche business BBR Auctions in Elsecar, near Barnsley, had a good 2017.

A long-running biannual specialist fair has been renamed and will launch its first edition in London under a new organiser this month.

Two pre-Christmas sales, one at Woolley & Wallis (22% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury and one at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford, highlighted the move of studio pottery from esoteric niche into the mainstream market.

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 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.

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

Though probably better known for his bronze and chryselphantine Art Deco figures, Austrian sculptor Josef Lorenzl also worked for Viennese ceramics factories and, in particular, Goldscheider, for whom he designed the extremely popular Butterfly Girl.

A December 7 sale of European ceramics at Bonhams will incorporate 130 pieces of Neapolitan porcelain from a single private source.

Working in late Victorian London, the Martin Brothers were true studio potters, producing their distinctive, whimsical pieces which today are highly collectable.