Arts and Crafts

Art Nouveau comb with coral fish and pearls

Price: £45

This is a beautiful piece of Art Nouveau, a celluloid hair comb with an inset carving of a koi fish in coral and seed pearls. It is carved with swirls and incised with very fine designs.

Two Brass Art Nouveau Style pitchers, Joseph Sankey and Sons circa 1910

Price: £75

Two brass pitchers of broad conical form with a widely flaring lip and a simple loop handle, decorated in relief with an art nouveau style design emplying stylised tulips, the base of the larger marked ‘SOLID BRASS’ with extremely feint traces of other markings and the base of the smaller marked ‘MADE IN ENGLAND’ ‘J. S. & S’ ‘SOLID BRASS’.

‘J.S.&S’ was the mark for Joseph Sankey and Sons, a firm based in Bilston, Wolverhampton, who specialised in the manufacture of art metalware. Production seems to have started in the late nineteenth century and the firm registered designs, many in the art nouveau style, from 1896 to 1914. These ewers or pitchers were clearly a popular design to judge from the numbers found today but were referred to in the catalogues simply as ‘hot water jugs’. They were made in brass and copper in three finishes, hammered, lizard skin and art nouveau style, as here. At least six different sizes are known and sometimes the size number can be found on the base (indicating the number of pints the vessel would hold) along with the manufacturers mark, as is the case with the smaller ewer which is marked '2'. The larger ewer is only marked 'solid brass' but its height indicates its capacity which is six pints.

Popular in their day, these brass pitchers are highly sought after now for their obvious decorative appeal but clearly could also serve as flower vases providing a striking enhancement to an interior setting.