The sale at Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds on December 12 features 28 lots from a single-owner collection of silver items made by Hester Bateman (1708-1794).
As England’s most renowned female silversmith, she successfully ran her family business for 30 years following the death of her husband John Bateman in 1760.
Estimated at £600-800 is this George III silver wine funnel (London 1787) pictured top.
Meiji bronze vase bearing the seal of celebrated craftsman Momose Shigesato, estimate £8000-12,000 at Hansons on December 10.
This Meiji bronze vase bears the seal of celebrated craftsman Momose Shigesato. It will be sold in Hansons’ Country House Fine Art and Library Auction at Bishton Hall, Staffordshire, on December 10 with an estimate of £8000-12,000.
The 2ft (60cm) vase – similar to another by the maker in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore – may be one of many produced for international exhibitions in the west in the last three decades of the 19th century. Alongside a central high relief, panels depict a gentleman with bound branches and an infant seated playing a flute beside a basket.
Early Worcester beaker vase, c.1754, of ‘Scratch Cross’ type and of waisted, cylindrical form, finely painted with the ‘Bird and Snail’ pattern, estimate £7000-9000 at Bonhams Knightsbridge on December 15.
Worcester Porcelain: The John Alchin and Ralph Kenber Collections comes to Bonhams Knightsbridge on December 15.
Kenber collected porcelain over a period of 20 years from the early 1990s. He had retired some years earlier from a successful career in the brewery industry and his collection began as he sought out another hobby to pursue alongside his many interests. Fascinated with early Worcester Porcelain, his tastes were defined by rarity of form and decoration.
In 1980 Alchin received a Christmas present from a friend and, although initially baffled by the choice of gift, what followed was 40 years of browsing the antique stalls of Portobello Road and Kensington Church Street; with many visits to the Museum of Royal Worcester.
Highlights include this early Worcester beaker vase, c.1754, of ‘Scratch Cross’ type and of waisted, cylindrical form, finely painted with the ‘Bird and Snail’ pattern. Bonhams states there are “only four recorded examples of this exceptional vase”.
Estimate: £7000-9000.
A 17th century map of Judea and the Holy Land once presented to former Israel prime minister Golda Meir will be offered at John Nicholson’s on December 16, estimate £500-1000.
A 17th century map of Judea and the Holy Land once presented to former Israel prime minister Golda Meir will be offered at John Nicholson’s Oriental and Islamic auction on December 16.
The fully coloured map by the French royal cartographer and geographer Guillaume Sanson (1633-1703) shows the lands of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and was published by Alexis-Hubert Jaillot in 1695. Sanson was the son of Nicolas Sanson (1600-67), widely regarded as the father of French cartography and also cartograher and sometime tutor to two kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Trevor Chinn, chairman of the Joint Israel Appeal, presented the 2ft 1in x 3ft 1in (63.5 x 93.5cm) map to Meir during her visit to London in 1976.
Estimate £500-1000.
Drop Curtain Loxford, an ink, watercolour, gouache and charcoal on paper by John Piper, estimate £3000-5000 at Duggleby Stephenson on December 11.
According to an inscription verso, Drop Curtain Loxford, an ink, watercolour, gouache and charcoal on paper by John Piper (1903-92), was a design for the set of a performance of the Benjamin Britten opera Albert Herring.
Included in the Piper exhibition at the Tate Gallery in 1984, the 15 x 20in (38 x 49cm) sketch comes for sale at Duggleby Stephenson in York on December 11 from the private family collection at Harewood House. It will be sold on behalf of the 7th Earl of Harewood’s Will Trust with a guide of £3000-5000.
Gold, black enamel and hairwork memorial ‘swivel’ ring is inscribed to the Hon Diana Walpole neé Grosset, estimate £300-400 at Peter Wilson on December 10.
The December 10 Fine Jewellery sale at Peter Wilson in Nantwich includes a group of pieces linked to the Walpole family consigned to sale from a local vendor and collector.
This gold, black enamel and hairwork memorial ‘swivel’ ring is inscribed to the Hon Diana Walpole neé Grosset. She was married on May 8, 1780, to the Hon Robert Walpole (1736-1810), the minister plenipotentiary to Portugal from 1771- 1800 and the nephew of Britain’s first de facto prime minister Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745).
Sadly, as this ring recalls, four years into their short marriage, and aged only 20, Diana died.
Estimate £300-400.
An Abstract painting by Guyanese artist Sir Richard Franklin Bowling, estimate £10,000-15,000 at Grand Auctions on December 14.
An Abstract painting by Guyanese artist Sir Richard Franklin Bowling (b.1934) is on offer at Grand Auctions in Folkestone on December 14.
The 9 x 15in (24 x 39cm) acrylic on card (laid on canvas) carries an inscription on the back Blowing towards England. For Nancy and the grandchildren, as ever. FB.
Nancy was the landlady of a pub in west London where she came to know the artist. The painting has remained in her family.
Estimate £10,000-15,000.
A c.1884 Geo Singer & Co, ‘Xtraordinary Challenge’ lever-driven safety bicycle, estimate £6000-8000 at Transport Collector Auctions (in partnership with Lawrences of Crewkerne) on December 15.
A c.1884 Geo Singer & Co, ‘Xtraordinary Challenge’ lever-driven safety bicycle, in fully restored condition, forms part of a collection of historic bicycles being sold by Transport Collector Auctions (in partnership with Lawrences of Crewkerne) on December 15.
Finished in green, the 54-inch driving wheel has butted spokes, renewed bearings, new solid tyring and polished hub.
Estimate £6000-8000.
