Date: Fri 09-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

ceramics,

Full Text:

International Collectors And Museums Buy At Ceramics Fair In London

LONDON, ENGLAND -- Collector, museum and trade buying flourished at Brian and

Anna Haughton's 18th International Ceramics Fair and Seminar June 11 through

14. The legendary first-day queue, headed by Baron de Rothschild, Jayne

Wrightsman (the Wrightsman wing of the Metropolitan Museum is named after her

husband) and Gillian Wilson from the Getty Museum, stretched five people deep

up Piccadilly past the Athenaeum Hotel and around the corner.

Best sellers among the 45 exhibitors from ten countries were early English

pottery and porcelain, early Continental porcelain and Chinese export. English

buying was strong, joined by significant selling to Americans, Australians,

Scandinavians, Portuguese, Brazilians, Continentals and Mexicans.

Jonathan Horne, a famous name in this field, had "a record fair" in terms of

money taken, selling across the board to customers old and new in delft,

medieval, early Staffordshire, late Staffordshire, creamware, etc., from œ50

for an English delft tile to œ20,000.

He sold a unique salt glaze teapot with a Bacchus top and an Astley pottery

horse and rider of 1740s. Another well-known name in this field, Gary Atkins,

did "excellent" business, particularly with pearlware and prattware, mostly

with old and new American customers, selling more than 50 items in the price

range of œ50 to œ9,000. Sales of early English porcelain benefited from the

excellent loan exhibition mounted by Mrs Anne George of Eighteenth Century

porcelain from private collections. The quality, rarity and significance of

the nearly 100 items were highly praised by academics, dealers and collectors

in the field.

Brian Haughton enjoyed an exceptional fair in both English and Continental

porcelain, selling Worcester, Bow, Chelsea, Wedgwood and Longton Hall as well

as Meissen, Paris, Capodimonte, Frankenthal and others, many for five-figure

sums.

Valerie Howard's later English porcelain was popular, such as a Masons

Ironstone Cheese Bell of 1815-20 that went for around œ5,500 and a Miles Mason

vase of a quality and rarity not seen before.

Adrian Sassoon sold a highly important and rare pair of Sevres vases of 1763

to an American private collector. Only one other vase of this model is known;

it was one of a pair bought by Louis XV in 1757.

He also sold a Sevres service and other items of Eighteenth Century

Continental porcelain, as well as "tons of contemporary ceramics," sales of

which were boosted by his innovative idea of having the potters present at

certain times to discuss their work.

Chinese export porcelain was an outstanding success at the fair with all of

the exhibitors in that field reporting superb sales: Cohen and Cohen, Alegria,

Santos, Monique Mardellis, Jorge Welsh, and new exhibitor Antoine Lebel.

Customers were from America, England, Belgium, France, Portugal, Brazil and

Mexico.

Santos sold his star piece, a blue and white jar and cover with original gold

mounts, made for the Dutch market in the late Seventeenth Century. Cohen and

Cohen sold an exceptional pair of Chinese armorial dinner plates made for the

Belgium market circa 1740 and a beautiful rose verte 1730 moon flask, among

other things.

Antoine Lebel's profitable first outing included an important sale to an

English collector of commemoratives: a "freedom of the press" Chinese export

bowl depicting John Wilkes, journalist and satirist, who displeased George III

(and was twice thrown into the Tower of London, though he later became Mayor

of London) and the king's Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield.

Delomosne sold some 100 items of mainly Eighteenth Century glass in the range

of œ150 to œ5,500. A new customer from North Carolina bought Japanese tea

ceremony vessels from E & J Frankel.

Galerie de Breyne and Hugues-Jean Lamy were extremely pleased with their first

fair, selling both Chinese and European ceramics, including items from two

rare factories; a 1765 Creseby factory soup tureen from Schleswig, which was

at the time Danish, to a Danish collector (around œ3,000) and a ceramic

chicken made circa 1815 at Ferriere la Petite in Northern France (around

œ5,000).

The next Haughton International Fairs are the International Fine Art and

Antique International Dealers Show October 15 to 21 and the first

International Twentieth Century Arts Fair November 27 to December 1 -- both at

the Seventh Street Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City.