Decorative Arts & Ephemera

Novelty match holder with cat, Klimax Japan, mid C20th

Price: £20

This is a novelty ceramic match holder made in the form of a cat, colourfully dressed with a slightly puzzled expression, holding a vase to contain the matches. The base is stamped in orange ‘Klimax’ ‘Hand painted’ ‘Foreign’. Little seems to be known of the firm, but they produced modest, hand painted decorative ceramics before and after the second world war for the export market. Their work is often similar to Noritake or very late Kutani pieces and concentrates on tableware and vases. These march holders seem much less common. The word ‘foreign’ was used by Japanese manufacturers when there was a feeling that the true country of origin should not be advertised. It was more common before the war but used sometimes afterwards, so a dating here to the 1940s or 1950s is the most likely. Not the most sophisticated ceramic item, but certainly an amusing one!

Pair of petit point Tapestry Pictures, The Needlewoman Shop London, mid C20th

Price: £55

A pair of oval tapestry pictures depicting a lady and a gentleman in eighteenth century dress, framed and one with a label for ‘The Needlewoman Shop’ in Regent Street, London to the reverse. This attractive and finely worked pair of needlework images was most likely created from preprinted pattern tapestry canvas. Various examples of these were produced during the twentieth century including the popular ‘Gobelin’ range. The Needlewoman Shop traded in Regent Street from 1928 to 1985 and was something of a mecca for those interested in fine sewing in all its forms. The likelihood is that the patterns for these pictures were sold by the shop, possibly along with the threads required, and then framed by them after the customer had completed the kit successfully, but this is no more than an educated guess. The format of the label suggests a dating in the 1950s.

The fine stitching used here is a version of needlepoint termed ‘petit point’ because of the small size of stitches used. In general needlepoint, designs are stitched onto fine canvas using a simple tent stitch, a small, diagonal stitch that crosses over the intersection of one horizontal and one vertical thread of the canvas forming a slanted stitch at a 45-degree angle. Petit point uses the same technique but with much finer stitching and thread on a much finer canvas often requiring magnification for the work to be carried out. It allows more intricate designs and shading effects as can be clearly seen here. The technique was particularly popular in France amongst the aristocracy in the early eighteenth century which perhaps determines the choice of subject here but with their intricate stitching and complementary frames, this pair of tapestries would definitely be a candidate for boudoir accessories in the present day.

Delft style garniture vase, probably Chinese C20th

Price: £20

The marks underneath this vase proudly announce production at Delft, Holland which is written below the standard apothecary bottle and the cipher ‘JT’ (from Joost Thooft, the company owner from 1876) with, in addition, a painter’s mark, which cannot be identified and a date code leeter ‘R’ for 1896. There are also some impressed letters and numbers which are hard to identify. The form and decoration is similar to that of a Chinese eighteenth century garniture vase (there should be a cover to this in addition) which is entirely consitent with original Delft pieces which copied or based themselves on Chinese models, although the shape here is exaggeratedly slender. But the mechanical craquelure glaze is totally unauthentic as is the thickly potted body and the paste of the base which is most likely Chinese and therefore yet another example of the European style pieces they made during the late twentieth century, a few example so of which can be seen elsewhere on this site. A novelty pastiche then but with the potential for the display of small flowers which it would complement rather well.