In 1945, the textile company Ascher commissioned a number of leading modern British artists and designers to produce designs for headscarves.
The artists were asked to submit patterns in any medium, colour or size, for a 2ft 11in (90cm) long silk or rayon square, choosing their own subject matter. The designs were launched in 1946 at Britain Can Make It, the first post-war exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington.
Pictured above is Henry Moore’s (1898-1986) design for Ascher, made in c.1946. The silk textile square is estimated at £800-1200 in the Design and Modern British Post War Art sale at Mallams in Oxford on May 17-18.
mallams.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
Renowned for his love of cigars, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) supposedly acquired the habit in Cuba while visiting as a war correspondent in 1895.
This unsmoked Don Joaquin Habana cigar, in a cedar single-cigar-box, was reputedly given by Churchill to the English publisher and author Sir Walter Newman Flower (1879-1964). It is estimated at €1000-1500 in The Eclectic Collector sale at Dublin auction house Whyte’s on May 5.
Flower published Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples and The Second World War, two of the prime minister’s most commercially successful works.
The cigar comes with a typed label of provenance and has passed by descent from Flower’s widow, Beatrice Downes.
whytes.ie or see this item on thesaleroom.com
More than 400 fans assembled by the late antique lace collector, Arthur Blackborne, will be sold across two single-owner auctions at Tennants in Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
The first tranche, offered on May 23, will include this c.1880s Japanese tortoiseshell brisé fan, embellished with takamaki-e in several shades of gold depicting birds, butterflies and foliage, and with shibayama insects. It is estimated at £1500-2000.
Blackborne’s 7000-piece antique lace collection, which was started by his father, Anthony Blackborne (1842-78), from the family lace shop in Mayfair in 1850, was donated to The Bowes Museum, County Durham, in 2007. His fan collection has remained in the family and has not been on the market since his death and the closure of the London shop in 1952.
tennants.co.uk or see this item on thesaleroom.com
The most common type of a wine-drinking cup found in ancient Greece was the wide-bowled terracotta kylix vessel, with its distinctive wide horizontal handles.
This well-preserved black-figure example, dated to the 6th-5th century BC, is priced at £1800 from CJ Martin (Coins) & Ancient Art in London. The 3in (7cm) high piece is decorated with dancing scenes found at symposia – an ancient Greek party where men gathered to eat, drink and sing together, as well as to discuss philosophy, politics and poetry.
