Victorian filigree style handbag c1900
Price: £25
This is a completely original handbag with a white metal frame and taffeta body. The design is very typical Victorian with filigree and scroll work on the frame. It is lined in llight grey taffeta.
Miniature Staffordshire flatback model of two spaniels and a barrel, second half C19th
Price: £55
This is a charming model of two spaniels, one sitting on a barrel, with a stylised garden ground below. The modelling is slightly impressionistic and the earthenware body is applied with an all over cream coloured glaze with a slight craquelure effect decorated with brightly coloured enamels fairly coarsely painted. All this is typical of the so called ‘Staffordshire’ figures produced in England in the nineteenth century which enjoyed huge popularity and were to be found in many homes. Various small potteries made these wares and not only ones based in Staffordshire; they are not marked but the style is consistent and instantly recognisable. Many of the pieces, both people and animals, were designed as shelf or mantelpiece ornaments and were therefore made with a flat back, hence the descriptive term. The model here exists in both a full size and miniature form, usually with the same decorative elements. The smaller scale only adds to the charm and this pair of dogs could find a home in a modern setting just as easily as they did in a Victorian one.
Possibly Russian bird form ewer with cover c1960
Price: £45
This is a very unusual large jug or ewer modelled in the stylised form of bird with a man riding it. It appears to be Russian although there are mo marks.
Strand of Chinese ceramic beads c1950
Price: £25
This is a lovely necklace comprising 19 barrel shaped ceramic beads with vulcanite spacer beads. The ceramic beads are chinese porcelain with Famille Rose style decoration. This necklace has not clasp but will fit over the head.
Strand of large Peking glass beads c1920
Price: £25
This is a striking string of beads that are Peking glass. Peking glass was created as a more economical alternative to jade and is a favorite stone for beads and and costume jewellery from the 1920s. With barrel clasp.
Pair of silver fobs adapted as earrings, Birmingham 1904 & 1905
Price: £75
This is a wonderful way to upcycle two watchain fobs. These fobs were earned by the same person for ;perfect attendance by the Kent Education Commitee. Although they are undated the silver marks indicate the years 1904 and 1905. These have very fine quality siliver work. It bears the coat of arms for the KEC. These have been set on silver earring hooks.
Silver cuff bracelet set with Scottish banded carnelian stone, Birmingham 1975
Price: £85
This is a very striking bracelet set with a very large Scottish.banded canelian stone. The setting is a very simple and elegant three band design. Bears full silver marks for Birmingham 1975. The makers mark is AP.
Group of Three Chinese carved bone Horses with wood stands, probably mid C20th
Price: £30
This is a group of three bone horses carved in China most likely in the 1930s/1940s. The patina is attractive and the three different poses imaginatively created. One horse is shown grazing, another standing with his head turned back and the third galloping with his tail upraised. These are almost certainly three from an original set of eight which would have represented the famous 'Eight Horses of Wang Mu', so often depicted in Chinese Art. The Emperor Mu of the Zhou dynasty (1023-983 BC) was the subject of a romance legend in which he sought to visit the heavenly paradise and taste the peaches of immortality. A charioteer named Zaofu used his chariot drawn by eight horses to carry Wang Mu to his desired destination and the legend was then perpetuated in Chinese Art. As well as being found in Chinese painting and on Chinese porcelains, the horses were also the subject of Chinese sculptors working in ivory, bone and even wood. Many of these small groups exist and most are no more than a hundred years old. The style here and the form of the fitted wood stands suggests mid C20th work, probably as tourist souvenirs. While missing their companions, this group still enjoy a unity of their own and make a highly decorative ensemble.
French Orientalist etching aquatint - Paris La Rue Saint Rustique
Price: £30
This is a beautile small etching aquatint that is signed. One reverse is the printers label of "Georges Hautecoer & Co. Gravures Encadements 172 Rue de Rivoli Paris". It is a scene of a very famous street in the Monmarte district of Paris. The signature is illegible but it is lovely quality.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Egyptian Hieroglyphic wall plaque c2000
Price: £15
This is a very detailed plaque that depicts an Egyptian owl. It is a replica from Tutenkhamun's tomb that was issued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Blackpool souvenir teapot c1920
Price: £30
This is a wonderful souvenir teapot from Blackpool with a pewter cover. Blackpool was a very popular holiday destination for brits back one hundred years or so. Blackpool is a seaside resort on the Irish Sea coast of England. It's known for Blackpool Pleasure Beach, an old-school amusement park with vintage wooden roller coasters. Built in 1894, the landmark Blackpool Tower houses a circus, a glass viewing platform and the Tower Ballroom, where dancers twirl to the music of a Wurlitzer organ.
Japanese satsuma style match stick holder c1940
Price: £35
This is a lovely little figure of a Japanese man holding a vessel that is used to hold matches. It is done in a satsuma style motif and is marked Made in Japan on the bottom. A lovely souvenir from a trip long ago.
Pair of Chelsea style Figures of a Country Couple, probably Samson late C19th
Price: £55
This is an attractive pair of small porcelain figures depicting a Country Couple, both in bright day clothes, the young man with a dog and playing the flute and the young lady holding a goat. Each stand on oval bases, gilt rimmed and with a raised geometric pattern and each is marked with a gold anchor to the reverse. Students of ceramics will immediately recognise the Gold Anchor mark as that found on Chelsea porcelain made during the period 1756 to 1769 but these figures are a hundred years later or more and probably made by the well known ‘Samson’ factory of France (Samson, Edmé et Cie) which produced skilful reproductions and recreations of English, European and Oriental porcelains during the nineteenth century and beyond. Samson pieces tend to have a much harder paste than that of their originals, their glazes are more glossy and the colours often more vivid. All these characteristics can be seen here but there were other manufacturers in France making these derivative copies as well and in the absence of a Samson mark, which was not always applied to their work, certainty is impossible. But this should not detract from quality and charm of thi pair of figures which can appael to amateurs and professional collectors alike.
Edwardian large text magnifying glass with horn handle c1910
Price: £25
This is a very usual large magnifying glass that has a buffalo horn as a handle. It would have been used to read the newspaper, as the text was so small. It is brass.
Chinese Cantonese style Vase decorated butterflies, late C20th
Price: £55
This is a vase of typical Chinese nineteenth century baluster form with a broad ovoid body narrowing to a near cylindrical neck which flares out towards the galleried rim at the top; each side has two applied and modelled confronting fo dogs. The decoration employs the ‘Famille Rose’ palette with vividly represented flying butterflies amidst flowering peony and lotus; the kylins are finished in iron red and the galleried rim has a band of repeating key pattern. All of this points to the nineteenth century but the brushwork and general appearance of the deccoration indicate a much later date of manufacture, probably late C20th, and the finish of the foot, with its ‘baked in’ imitation dirt, is wholly consistent with this. The fo dogs too are much more sketchily modelled than their older counterparts. But this is a pastiche with great charm and much above the average quality of late C20th work. Even when making copies, the Chinese could sometimes try quite hard!
Japanese Celadon Dish decorated basket of flowers, circa 1900
Price: £45
An unusual shallow dish of lobed and fluted circular form, the rich celadon glaze decorated in underglaze blue and overglaze enamels with a basket of flowering lotus, the design slightly off centre, the reverse with a blue transfer mark representing fungus (a plant traditionally symbolising long life).
Celadon glazed wares with enamel decoration in fairly muted colours are a familiar product amongst the ceramics produced by Japanese potters at the end of the nineteenth century but examples of this type of dish are rather less commonly found. The basket of flowers is a regular decorative feature of Chinese ceramics, but given here a slightly different interpretation with the depiction of lotus, the emblem of summer. The mark probably imitates Chinese ‘commendation’ marks inscribed within the foot rim, another nod on the part of the Japanese potters towards their Chinese counterparts.
African wood figural group, Guinea c1970
Price: £35
This is a carved wood group depicitng a woman carrying water with a pig, fruit and other household implements.
An unusual pair of Art Deco style Japonaiserie ceramic vases, probably French 1920s/1930s
Price: £55
The fashion if not mania for ‘things Japanese’ in the late C19th and early C20th is well known and well documented. Sometimes pieces were produced with the aim of being more affordable and this seems to be what we have here. This earthenware pair of vases are of hexagonal form, flaring at the neck and base with a rounded foot, and covered in a crackleware glaze which graduates from black at the foot, through dark brown to mustard yellow at the top with the addition of reds and greens. On this is applied stencil decoration in black of two contrasting but complimentary scenes, on the one two geisha planting small bonsai trees and on the other a single geisha standing in a garden scene with a covered bird’s house in the distance. The reverses are plain and the foot glazed in cream, each with the numbers 1593. Modest pastiches of the Oriental style were produced in England in the 1930s (elsewhere on the site can be seen a Pair of Orientalist Staffordshire ‘Foley Ware’ vases) but this pair were more probably made in France at around the same time, where there was an equal if not an even greater enthusiasm for the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’. The clean lines of the shape very much recall the Art Deco era but no parallels seem to exist, making this pair a rather ‘one off’ addition to a collection of Japanese influenced decorative arts.
Large suede pouch bag with consertina opening c1930
Price: £65
This is a wondeful large handbag comprising a brown suede pouch with a brass opening. It is unlned.
Toulouse Lautrec poster entitled Jane Avril c1950
Price: £125
This is a very good example of the Jane Avril poster by Lautrec. This is originally was printed in 1893. This print is very true to the original and is not a current reprint. It has been photographed out of the frame to show its age and the trueness of the colours.
Victorian Black Watch iron doorstop c1890
Price: £25
This is a whimsical doorstop in the form of a Black Watch soldier. It is made of cold painting iron.>p
The Royal Highlanders, also referred to as the Black Watch, was a famed Scottish regiment of the British Army. Part of its notability is due to its longevity, having been initially conceived in 1725.
LOT 5
Pair of Beige Opaline Glass Vases with enamelled decoration, probably French late C19th
Estimate: £50 – 80
4d 12h 38m
£26.00
Japanese Arita Square Sake Flask and Cover decorated flowers, C20th
Price: £25
This is a rather striking example of a Japanese sake flask of less conventional form. The slender square form rectangular body (compare lot XX) is topped with a slender slightly concave neck of gently conical form, the top capped by a stopper like cover. On one of the corners is an elaborate loop form handle and on the other a short spout. The base is flat and unglazed. The decoration is rather hybrid. The iron red and gold scrolling pattern at the top recalls kutani pieces, but the main body, with its heavily enamelled chrysanthemum heads employing a wide variety of colours, looks almost towards satsuma wares. The combination is quite arresting if not eyecatching and raises the question of whether there was once a set of cups with a matching design… The slightly ‘brassy’ look to the gilding indicates an early C20th dating but probably no later than around 1920. Best regarded, perhaps, as a functional piece of whimsy!
Fine quality pair of Brass Cobra Candlesticks, Indian first half C20th
Price: £95
A pair of brass candlesticks cast as two Cobra snakes with twisting tails acting as the feet with the bodies rising up erect from them, the stylised heads supporting the candle sconces and serrated edge drip pans. There are many examples of Indian made candlesticks cast in a similar form where the brass metal is combined with enamel decoration. This pair, lacking even incised detail to the metal surface as can occur, are much more unusual and striking in their simplicity. The brass itself is high quality and the pieces have a good weight. It is as if the Indian workmen have tried to adapt themselves to the angular simplicity of the Art Deco style. Unlike their more heavily decorated contemporaries, this pair of snakes would not have looked out of place in an Art Deco themed European interior. Dating is therefore quite reasonably to the 1920s or 1930s. Arresting in their time, these two Cobra snakes would deservedly attract attention today.
Fairing Figurine – A Mouse A Mouse, German, late C19th
Price: £25
Fairing Figurine "A Mouse A Mouse". 'Fairings', as they are known, were ceramic figures made to be given out, sold or won as prizes at fairs, hence the name. They were a product of the late Victorian era but continued to be made until the beginning of the First World War when they fell out of fashion. Manufacture was in Germany principally by the firm Conta and Boehme who developed a mass production method that no other company could match, thereby achieving a market advantage. They exported large quantities to Britain and the United States, but their pieces have even been found in Australia along with other destinations.
The various figures were made in white glazed porcelain with coloured decoration. The compositions were sculptural and often accompanied by an inscription, as here. Many models are known. Two typical examples are 'Returning from the Ball' and 'Twelve Months after Marriage'. Here we have a composition entitled “A Mouse A Mouse!”, which shows a couple, the wife raising herself from the bedclothes while her husband crawls on the floor, having knocked over a chamber pot in the process. Notably absent is the mouse itself…
Some of the fairing figurines are marked, as here. The impressed number '1886', which would be a series number, is combined with the impressed shield mark found on Conta and Boehme pieces from the late C19th. The paste of the foot is consistent with this and the slightly ‘brassy’ look to the gilding (compare Lot XX) complements this as well. It has been suggested that this particular model type is, in fact, a modern reproduction and there are other versions of the design which do indeed look contemporary but this is unlikely to be the case here and we most likely have an amusing and period example of the genre.
Pair of Chinese Ceramic Shoes, seal mark and with fitted box, C20th
Price: £55
An amusing pair of Chinese ceramic models of shoes or clogs, modelled in the form of a kylin head with a pronounced snout, the sides of the shoe with impressed repeating geometric patterns below a band of stylised scrolling foliage, the brightly coloured glazes all with craquelure patterning, the interior glazed turquoise with an impressed seal mark and the underneath glazed in cream, also with a small circular impressed mark. The pair are presented in a fitted box, fabric covered and silk lined, which is presumably contemporary. Neither of the marks can be deciphered and dating is uncertain, probably to the late C20th, but this does not need to detract the rather humorous design which does have at least one parallel from the C18th (see image XX)and may have been intended as a brushwasher for a scholar with something of a sense of humour.
LOT 6
Pair of Bohemian Harrach Glass Vases, Morocco pattern, second half C19th
Estimate: £60 – 80
4d 12h 40m
£36.00
Pair of Ceramic Wall Hanging Plaques, Butterflies, probably continental 1960s
Price: £40
A pair of ceramic wall hanging plaques modelled in the form of butterflies with outspread wings, brightly decorated in green, red, orange and black enamels with beaded detail, the reverses plain and with a central cavity, pierced at the top for the wire wall hanger which also forms the proboscis. The fairly coarse paste of the foot rim at the back and general style of decoration suggests continental work, most likely Portugal or Spain and these pieces have a mid century look to them suggesting a a dating in the 1960s when brightly coloured ornaments (and carpets!) enjoyed something of a vogue. Highly decorative then, this pair of lepidoptera would certainly enliven a contemporary interior.
Pair of Capodimonte ceramic Wall Hanging Plaques, boy and girl praying, Italian 1960s
Price: £25
This is a charming pair of small ceramic wall plaques, the biscuit porcelain with a slight ivory tint, with moulded designs of a boy and a girl praying, their hair and robes carefully detailed, set in velvet covered oval frames with cording at the edge which also forms the loop hangers at the top. Near identical pieces often have a paper mark at the back reading ‘Porcellane Capodimonte’ ‘Made in Italy’ surrounding a crown device with an ‘N’ above. Capodimonte porcelain was first made at Naples, Italy, in the mid eighteenth century and was often marked with an ‘N’ and a crown above. The original factory was to enjoy a relatively short life but there were many imitators in the nineteenth century and beyond to the twentieth who freely used the Capodimonte name. This pair of plaques is a very modest and fairly recent (probably dating to the 1960s) example of these ‘Capodimonte’ wares but nonetheless have a distinct appeal of their own.
Pair of Capodimonte ceramic Wall Hanging Plaques, boy and girl praying, Italian 1960s
Price: £25
This is a charming pair of small ceramic wall plaques, the biscuit porcelain with a slight ivory tint, with moulded designs of a boy and a girl praying, their hair and robes carefully detailed, set in velvet covered oval frames with cording at the edge which also forms the loop hangers at the top. Near identical pieces often have a paper mark at the back reading ‘Porcellane Capodimonte’ ‘Made in Italy’ surrounding a crown device with an ‘N’ above. Capodimonte porcelain was first made at Naples, Italy, in the mid eighteenth century and was often marked with an ‘N’ and a crown above. The original factory was to enjoy a relatively short life but there were many imitators in the nineteenth century and beyond to the twentieth who freely used the Capodimonte name. This pair of plaques is a very modest and fairly recent (probably dating to the 1960s) example of these ‘Capodimonte’ wares but nonetheless have a distinct appeal of their own.
Compagnie des Indes style reticulated edge Armorial Plate, Chinese C20th
Price: £45
The general appearance here is that of a piece of Chinese Export porcelain dinner ware (the so called ‘Compagnie des Indes’ or ‘East India Company’ style) made around 1800. This plate essentially follows the late eighteenth century form, even in its openwork or reticulated edge which was not uncommon at the time although the lightly scalloped edge is anachronistic and the piece is far heavier than an original would be.. The centre is painted with an armorial crest but not, on this piece, one that can be identified indicating a ‘pseudo’ composition. The border has a repeating grape vine pattern and a band of blue enamel with stars, both typical of late C18th Chinese work but if the front seems reasonably authentic, the reverse betrays the date of manufacture with the printed wording in iron red which reads ‘For decorative purposes only’ ‘Not for food use’ [and as if that was not enough] ‘Article may poison food’. Similar wording is found on other C20th Chinese pieces and is probably indicative of a post war dating to the 1950s or 1960s. There was clearly no attempt to deceive here and the producers presumably sensed a demand for such pastiche pieces which do seem to be collectible, even today.
Maud Frizon Handbag c1980
Price: £150
This is a lovely calfskin shoulder bag by the well known shoe designer Maud Frizon. It has multiple interior compartments and a flap over front with stud detail. The zip pulls are tiny shoes with her initials MF. Her name also appears on the label inside.
LOT 2
Murano Style Calla Lily Trumpet Shape Vase, second half C20th
Estimate: £60 – 80
4d 12h 32m
£38.00
LOT 15
Swirl design Cranberry glass Decanter and Stopper, probably Italian mid C20th
Estimate: £30 – 50
4d 12h 58m
£0.00
LOT 11
Aseda Glasbruk Blue Glass Bottle and Stopper by Bo Borgstrom, 1960s
Estimate: £40 – 60
4d 12h 50m
£26.00
Indian wooden toy model of a Horse with metal fitments, early C20th
Price: £25
This is an amusing wood model of a horse, its right leg raised and the head looking expectantly forwards, the finely grained wood with metal fitments in brass and copper representing the ears, muzzle, saddle, saddle bags and tail, all with fine detailing and small nail fastenings. Many examples exist of these wood and metal horse figures which are usually held to have been made in India at Jodphur, Rajastan, in the early C20th. Presumably more intended for the local colonial audience these pieces have an obvious and wider appeal. The smaller sizes were probably intended as toys and perhaps the original owner of this piece played with it a little too vigorously which might explain the damage to the right front leg!
Indian wooden toy model of a Horse with metal fitments, early C20th
Price: £25
This is an amusing wood model of a horse, its right leg raised and the head looking expectantly forwards, the finely grained wood with metal fitments in brass and copper representing the ears, muzzle, saddle, saddle bags and tail, all with fine detailing and small nail fastenings. Many examples exist of these wood and metal horse figures which are usually held to have been made in India at Jodphur, Rajastan, in the early C20th. Presumably more intended for the local colonial audience these pieces have an obvious and wider appeal. The smaller sizes were probably intended as toys and perhaps the original owner of this piece played with it a little too vigorously which might explain the damage to the right front leg!