Antiques Trade Gazette 13


DAY ON THE TILES The Arts & Crafts sale at Woolley & Wallis (20% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury on June 20 included this 6in (15cm) square blue and white William De Morgan tile sold for £5100 (estimate £500-800). The rare blue and white version of De


Morgan’s design of a kingfisher catching a fish while perched on a branch came from the collection of renowned British collector, the late Albert Wade. The tile is known in a triple-lustre version (a version sold for £2800 at Bonhams in February 2004), but this monochrome treatment was seemingly previously unrecorded. The previous high for a single De Morgan


tile is thought to be the £4400 (£5258 including 19.5% buyer’s premium) paid for a triple-lustre snake and lioness tile, again at Bonhams in February 2004. Woolley’s primary bidders were both UK


private collectors: an Arts and Crafts enthusiast and the tile collector who was ultimately successful.


Above: rare William De Morgan tile, £5100 at Woolley & Wallis.


Above: painted armchair, £1700 at Cheffins.


TAKING A FINAL LONG LOOK “There’s no need to be a millionaire, it just needs forethought.” In an interview given in a 1981 edition


of World of Interiors, Stephen Long’s astute attitude towards interior design is made clear, “...I have always held that if you cannot afford the absolute best then crowd it up...” It was a philosophy he upheld at his Fulham Road shop and in his living quarters where – as part of the signature ‘Stephen Long’ look – he would group together collections of otherwise modest items to create visually imposing displays he called “tablescapes”. Dennis Severs was a devotee and purchased much of the china for his house in Spitalfields from Long. It was the dealer’s desire that his items were


to be offered in “one grand sale” and so far as possible Cheffins (19.5% buyer’s premium) had tried to abide by his wishes. The collection was offered as a separate


Above: Kangxi reverse-decorated coral-ground bowl, £28,000 at Bellmans.


BOWLED OVER AT £28,000 EACH They brought precisely the same price – £28,000 each – just a day apart, but the Chinese bowls, above and below, appeal to different collecting aesthetics. Undoubtedly the rarer of the two wares, and a wholly unexpected result


Jade squirrel among grapes, £8500 at Dreweatts.


coming for a lot estimated at just £200-300, was the 5in (12.5cm) diameter bowl seen at Bellmans (20% buyer’s premium) of Wisborough Green, Billingshurst on June 27. It is reverse decorated in white to a coral ground with two incised five-claw dragons among cloud scrolls and flaming pearls. It had two rim chips but also a six-character mark for the Emperor Kangxi (1661-1722). Deemed of the period, it sold to an international buyer. Medallion bowls, the most characteristic wares from the Jiaqing (1796-1820)


and the Daoguang (1820-50) periods, reached these shores in considerable numbers and appear with some frequency in the UK salerooms. They differ in the sophistication and quality of the decoration but the 6in


SQUIRRELED AWAY Known as songshu (literally ‘pine tree mice’) squirrels in China are associated with longevity. With this 19th century pale celadon and russet jade carving the auspicious connotation is further enhanced by the inclusion of grapes, which in the Chinese language is a homophone for peaches (taozi), another longevity symbol. A common theme to Qing


works of art, this 2in (5cm) carving consigned from a South Kensington vendor, sold well over estimate for £8500 at Dreweatts’ (22% buyer’s premium) Asian Ceramics & Works of Art sale on June 27.


(15cm) c.1800 example seen at Chorley’s (17.5% buyer’s premium) of Prinknash Abbey on June 28 was both an early example of its type and superbly painted and incised to the ruby ground with four landscape medallions (one in polychrome enamels, the others en grisaille). The centre of the bowl was enamelled and gilded with an eight-sided star


centred by lotus petals (many have only underglaze decoration), while a tiny bubble in the glaze in the rim was its only imperfection. Estimated at £15,000- 20,000, it too made £28,000.


section within the June 13-14 ‘fine’ sale catalogue, with the exercise replicated on a smaller scale when the secondary items were sold in a Cambridge Interiors sale on June 28. A “tablescape” formed of ‘Etruscan’ pottery


generated the day’s top bid. Comprising many pieces of Spode and Davenport pottery, some of them damaged but all transfer printed with neoclassical scenes in shades of iron red and black, it captured the visual imagination of two eager buyers who took it to a multiple- estimate £2000. Long also had a penchant for the 19th


century painted furniture which has become a staple of the interior decorating market. The painted George III-style armchair with a lattice back which was bequeathed to Long by his friend John Fowler on his death in 1977 reached £1700, while a painted chest of drawers c.1880 was one of many pieces to improve upon what were generally very modest estimates, when it took £1600.


Above: Jiaqing ruby medallion bowl, £28,000 at Chorley’s.


Above: Etruscan pottery ‘tablescape’, £2000.


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