What a Hoot: Owls Fly Up To £11,500 in Ceramics Auction...
24th July 2020
A huge variety of lots is always a defining characteristic of auctions comprising Decorative Arts, Ceramics and Glass. Lawrences’ sale was no exception and, pleasingly, the variety was part of the attraction as bidders competed eagerly for all manner of items.
Some Cotswold School furniture began the section: a Hugh Birkett display cabinet doubled hopes to make £5000; and five pieces by Oliver Morel made a total of £9780, led by an oval dining table from c.1970 at £4250. Four marquetry panels to designs by Bruce Talbert (1838-1881), which had been found in a garage in Cheshire in the 1970s, totalled £3870, the leading price of the quartet being paid for a delightful design with a rabbit (£1250). A collection of Lalique glass totalled £9160, with a `Masque de Femme`, 32 x 31cm, making a little above the estimate at £2120. A rare carved oak model of a shire horse by celebrated designer Robert `Mouseman` Thompson made £4000 and a strikingly elegant Art Deco frosted glass car mascot by Red Ashay, entitled `The Butterfly Girl`, fluttered up to £1500. A large pottery table lamp in the form of a monkey surprised many by making £1250. Eight stained glass panels from Dangstein House in West Sussex sold very well and the best one depicting a leaping stag, 37 x 46cm, jumped above its estimate to make £2000, the group making £4470.
The Glass section went well, with a pair of Bohemian green glass comports making £1750 a set of six mid-18th Century wine glasses making £2750 and a Moser Amberina ewer and stopper more than doubling hopes of £800 to make £1870. Meissen was in demand in the Ceramics section: two owl groups, each 25cm high and offered as consecutive lots, made a combined total of £11,500. A pair of Meissen nodding pagoda figures, depicting jolly seated Chinese men in floral robes, made £1200. An unascribed pair of mid-18th Century English porcelain figures, 23cm high, attracted keen bidding to make £12,500.
In the Oriental section, prices for two Chinese metal, enamel and jade mounted hand mirrors reflected keen interest to make £1500 apiece. A crescent-shaped dish, probably Jiaqing (1796-1820), with a gilded orange ground made £1370; a famille rose teapot and cover exceeded hopes to make £2750; two Chinese water droppers, cast as recumbent figures, rose to £2000; and a large millefleurs vase, modern but highly decorative, went three times over estimate to make £4000.
