ARTS & CRAFTS

Good storage

Liberty & Co offered its own range of Arts and Crafts-style furniture from around 1900, supplied by commercial workshops. This ‘Sedley’ portable oak bookcase featured in Liberty’s 1907 Yuletide Gifts catalogue and is of pegged construction. The trefoil-shaped pierced decoration is a typical Arts and Crafts motif. The piece sold at Mallams in Cheltenham for £320 (est £100–£200) last July.

ARTS & CRAFTS

Practical furniture

Among furniture designers, early 20th-century Robert ‘Mouseman’ Thompson was one of the most popular searches on The-saleroom.com.  This vintage oak dining table (with signature carved mouse) and four chairs with studded leather seats sold at Cheffins in May, fetching £1,600 (est £1,500–£2,000). ‘It is earlier Thompson pieces such as this that appeal to bidders due to the patina and colour that only time and use can create. If it had been in better condition it would have fetched even more,’ says Cheffins’ Martin Millard. 

ARTS & CRAFTS

Decorative pottery 

Founded by painter Harold Rathbone, the Della Robbia Pottery in Birkenhead on The Wirral operated from 1894 to 1906. Its Arts and Crafts wares, mostly vases and bowls, have been sought after this year, with their beautiful hues and intricate patterns. These three colourful vases sold at Woolley & Wallis’s annual Arts and Crafts sale last June for: left to right, £700 (est £400–£600); £380 (est £300–£500); and £420 (est £300–£500).

NATURAL HISTORY & TRIBAL ART

Fascinating fossils 

Millions of years old, tactile marine ammonites are perennially popular in sales. ‘There’s a huge variety among this group of fossils, in size and shape, making them an interesting category to collect,’ says James Hyslop of Christie’s science and natural history department. This beautifully formed specimen, found in Morocco, sold for £8,125 (est £3,000–£5,000) at Christie’s last April.

NATURAL HISTORY & TRIBAL ART

Aboriginal art 

So sought after was original Aboriginal art that prices for showstoppers tended to zoom. Aboriginal people used their handmade artefacts to trade with the visiting ships and some items like early shields, boomerangs and clubs with a deep patina were of high value for collectors. This rare and intricate wooden broad shield, one metre long and with zig-zag incised decoration, came from south east Australia. It was consigned to Woolley & Wallis’s Tribal Art sale in September and sold for £28,000 (est £8,000–£12,000).

STUDIO CERAMICS

Signed by a master 

‘Standard Ware’ from the Leach Pottery in St Ives could be picked up in the low hundreds, but if they bore Bernard Leach’s signature the price rose significantly. This stoneware tea caddy, c1960, with tenmoku glazes is impressed ‘BL’ as well as bearing the Leach Pottery seal, and sold for £1,200 (est £700–£900) at Maak Ceramics last May.

STUDIO CERAMICS

Tableware to treasure

Lucie Rie’s bowls with scintillating glazes have made very high prices, but her standard tablewares are much more affordable. This stoneware coffee pot, c1960, bears Rie’s signature style, a band of sgraffito decoration around the neck, a pulled handle, and hat-like lid. It sold for £3,800 (est £1,200–£1,800) at Maak Ceramics’ twice-yearly auction.

STUDIO CERAMICS

Unique pieces

The collectable Danish potter Axel Salto produced many one-offs in his rather surreal style. This early, large Italian Bowl, c1931–32, in blue glazed stoneware, sold at Phillips' Nordic Design sale last September for £62,500 (est £50,000–£70,000). ‘We carried three of Salto’s works in our sale which were exceptional in scale, condition and provenance and captivated the salesroom,’ says Madalena Horta e Costa of Phillips.

20TH-CENTURY FASHION

1940s garb

Costume from the Forties was having a moment and this parcel lot sold at Bristol Auction Rooms for £320 (est £120 –£140). It included a pale blue belted coat and a leaf pattern suit made from Irish Moygashel linen, carrying a Belmont CWS label (Cooperative Wholesale Society). ‘The coat is Utility clothing, which dates it to the early 1940s and wartime Britain,’ says Liz van Hasselt, the auction house’s fashion specialist. 

20TH-CENTURY FASHION

Fashion illustration

If you didn’t have spare wardrobe space for clothes, walls came into play instead. This sophisticated 1934 sketch by Guy de Gerald sold for £110 (est £150–£250) at Kerry Taylor Auctions last spring. It depicts one of the high society designs the theatre costume designer-cum-fashion designer specialised in.

20TH-CENTURY FASHION

Punk revival

Enough time has elapsed for people to look back nostalgically on the Punk era of the 1970s, which certainly had its own distinctive fashion direction. ‘The return to the “rebel” look is a trend, and genuine items are being snapped up even if they’re unwearable,’ says Lawrences specialist, Harriet Cunningham. Last year, the auction house sold a 1979 ripped T-shirt (right) declaring ‘God Save Sid Vicious’ for £130 (est £50–£60).