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Lot 72
A Limoges Porcelain La Grande Guerre coffee set with designs by Job (Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), comprising, coffee pot and cover, milk-jug, sugar basin and cover, nine cups and ten saucers, printed with first world war military scenes, in colours printed factory marks, 19cm. high (24)
Lot 44
WILLIAM MORRIS (BRITISH 1834–1896) 'VINE AND ACANTHUS' EMBROIDERED PANEL, CIRCA 1890 coloured silks reserved on an unbleached linen ground, and lined with original printed cotton ‘Bird’ fabric by Morris & Co., later mounted and framed 169.2cm x 233cm (66 ½in x 99 ¾in) (frame size 181cm x 246cm (71 ¼in x 96 ¾in)) John and Joan Collins, Portobello Road, LondonAdrian J. Tilbrook and Dan Klein, LondonJohn Scott Collection Exhibited: The Fine Art Society, London Architect-Designers from Pugin to Voysey; The John Scott Collection , 3rd-25th June 2015, no. 84Literature: Morris & Company: Arras Tapestries, Wall-Papers, Fabrics, Furniture, Upholstery and Decoration, catalogue, circa 1910-12, p.24, where an identical design illustrated (half)Morris B. J. Victorian Embroidery: An Authoritative Guide, New York 1962, p.109Parry L. (ed.) William Morris, London 1996, p. 384The original design and cartoon for the tapestry are in the V&A; collection, accession numbers E.45-1940 and E.2472-1932Morris’ fascination with textiles was lifelong. This design is likely to have been partially inspired by the 16th century French and Flemish verdure tapestries he admired at Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest as a child. In 1854 he visited France and was exposed to medieval ecclesiastical designs as well as observing weaving techniques in the Parisian Gobelins Works. As was characteristic of Morris, he personally sought to understand the physical making process, reportedly picking apart pieces to ‘puzzle out the tricks of the loom’.Despite his early enthusiasm for the medium, it was not until 1877 that Morris made his first official foray into tapestry weaving with ‘Acanthus and Vine’. This venture was once more prompted by his desire to understand Arras tapestry, studying it through making. Morris accordingly set up a haute-lisse, or horizontal loom, in his Kelmscott Manor bedroom, and spent 516 hours from May-September of 1879 completing it. This was not a seamless process, Morris himself renaming the piece ‘Cabbage and Vine’ following a distortion of the Acanthus leaves during production! The finished piece remains in the collection at Kelmscott, later being transposed to embroidery form.In the decades preceding the making of ‘Acanthus and Vine’, the status of embroidery as an artform was much diminished. The craft required a minimal and shrinking skill level, comprising repetitive stitch types and designs copied from kits. The founding of the Royal School of Art Needlework in 1872 aimed to improve the reputation of secular embroidery, with William Morris as one of the principle supporting designers. Morris’ opinions towards textiles foreshadowed principles of the Arts & Crafts Society, not established for another thirty years. He supported a return to traditional techniques, reacting against the stagnant designs and garish colour palettes of contemporary pieces. In the years prior to the making of ‘Acanthus and Vine’, not only did he become sole manager and proprietor of Morris & Co., but his work was influenced firstly by the opening of the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A;) and secondly his association with dyer Thomas Wardle. The former saw him inspired by sources as various as Indian textiles and traditional crewelwork, whilst the latter enabled him to work closely with a practitioner experienced in natural vegetable dyes. In ‘Acanthus and Vine’ sweeping arches of foliage envelope thoughtfully placed pairs of birds and plump bunches of grapes, all showcasing Morris’ love of gardening and his ornithological fascination. The colours are naturalistic, and the stitches lie flat to the fabric, allowing the subject to shine, rather than the materials themselves. For Morris, design elements had to serve a purpose within the pattern, birds needing to relate to the foliage rather than being a dominating feature. Thus, this embroidery retains the realism Morris prized, and his sentiment that ornamental art should primarily remind us of ‘the outward face of the earth’.
Lot 314
GERALD SUMMERS (BRITISH 1899-1967) FOR THE MAKERS OF SIMPLE FURNITURE SET OF FIVE MODULAR BOOK UNITS, CIRCA 1934 oak (5) each 101.5cm high, 50.5cm wide, 22.5cm deep (39 ¾in high, 20in wide, 9in deep) Estate of Jessie BallSotheby's, London The Best of British - Design from the 19th and 20th Centuries - Paul Reeves: The Auction, 20 March 2008, Lot 126 Literature: Deese, M. ‘Gerald Summers and Makers of Simple Furniture’, Journal of Design History, vol. 5, no. 3, 1992, p.190 (catalogue page from late 1934 illustrated showing the book units)Deese, M. Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher, Makers of Simple Furniture 1931-1940, Berlin, 2024, pp. 67-69, 175, 300These book units were registered as design No. 796529 and described as ‘A simple and flexible system of providing accommodation for books, stores and articles of display’. They were available in Empire Whitewood polished white, black, oak, mahogany or walnut colour and retailed at £1 10 per unit or in birch white polished retailing at £3 30 per unit.Order lists in the firm’s archive show that by 1937 the units were available in London department stores - Barkers, Harrods, John Lewis, and Whiteley’s; and at the furnishers Heal’s and Bowmans (in addition to Makers of Simple Furniture’s own showroom).Martha Deese in her 2024 book notes that Gerald and his wife Marjorie organized a clever marketing campaign for the units that targeted members of the Left Book Club (p. 175):"In early or mid-1936, they embarked on a direct mail campaign targeted at a specific group of potential customers: members of the Left Book Club (L.B.C.). Conceived in January 1936, the L.B.C. vowed “to help in the terribly urgent struggle for World Peace & a better economic order & against Fascism, by giving (to all who are determined to play their part) such knowledge as will immensely increase their efficiency.” The club’s first advertisement for members, in February 1936, led to the enrollment of over six thousand people, each of whom as a condition of membership agreed to purchase every month, for a minimum of six months, a book chosen by the club’s leadership to enlighten and embolden its members. Whether or not Gerald and Marjorie belonged to the L.B.C., they recognized that a fast-growing group of forward-thinking individuals in possession of an ever-increasing number of books were ideal candidates for the book units. Within a few months of the club’s establishment, the Charlotte Street office posted custom packets to the club’s leaders. The contents consisted of a sales pitch (in the form of a letter), a spec sheet for the book units, and an order form cleverly encased in a red-orange folder that mimicked the distinctive orange, cloth-bound covers of the L.B.C.’s publications. “May we interest you in our Book Units for your L.B.C. and other books?” the letter queried. “As they are the most flexible units in existence we think they will have a special appeal for you.” The advantages of the units over other shelving systems — the adaptable form, the different shelf heights, and the capacity of sixty books per unit — took up the body of the letter. The sales pitch concluded with an appeal to both the purse and the psyche. “Built-in bookshelves are always a false economy; you cannot take them with you when you move. And, it is pleasant to re-arrange your room sometimes and enjoy the fresh surroundings.”Lyon & Turnbull wishes to thank Martha Deese for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.
Lot 227
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894-1978) ARTS & CRAFTS BREAKFRONT LOW BOOKCASE CABINET, 1925 incised artist's mark and craftsman's mark inside the central door, oak, with glazed doors 137cm high, 254cm wide, 44.5cm deep (54in high, 100in wide, 23½in deep) Mallams, 23 June 2005, lot 44 Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 252
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894–1978) DINING TROLLEY, 1961 incised artist's mark and monogram of Richard (Lil' Dicky) Cloudsdale to the base, oak with rubber and metal casters 60cm high, 73.5cm wide, 48cm deep (23 ½in high, 29in wide, 19in deep) Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 231
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894-1978) BIN, CIRCA 1953 incised artist's mark and monogram of Fred Ellison, oak 30cm high, 26.5cm wide (11 ¾in high, 10 ½in wide) Hill House Antiques, London Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 284
PETER WAALS (DUTCH 1870-1937), AFTER DESIGNS BY ERNEST GIMSON (BRITISH 1864-1919) ARTS & CRAFTS ARMCHAIR, CIRCA 1930 walnut, with holly and ebony beaded inlay and drop-in upholstered seat, inscribed to reverse of seat rail DESIGNED ERNEST GIMSON/ MADE PERCY BURCHETT/ 1929 IN WORKSHOPS OF / PETER WAALS and P. WAALS/ CHALFORD/ 1931/ P. H. BURCHETT, CRAFTSMAN 106cm high, 56cm wide, 44cm deep (41 ½in high, 22in wide, 17 ½in deep) Sir George TrevelyanSotheby's London Fine 20th Century Design, 28 April 2009, Lot 1 (with the companion side chair) Literature: Lethaby W. R.; Powell A. H.; Griggs, F.L. Ernest Gimson; His Life & Work, London 1924, pl. 36, where a table of related design is illustrated.Sir George Trevelyan was a pioneering educator and thinker of the 20th century. Advocating for principles including organic farming and communal living, he was also instrumental to the establishment of spiritual, educational charities including the Wrekin Trust and the Findhorn Foundation.Prior to his prominence within the New Age Movement, Trevelyan apprenticed himself to Peter Waals from 1929-31 and made many fine pieces of furniture in his workshop. Trevelyan wrote in 1969 that ‘Gimson would be first to acknowledge the immense debt he owed to him [Waals] as colleague. Though Gimson ws, of course, the inspiration and genius, he used Waals from the outset in closest cooperation in checking and discussing designs and construction. The association of these two men was an essential factor in the evolving of the Cotswold Tradition’.
Lot 228
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894-1978) TRAY, 1931 incised artist's mark, and monogram of Richard (Lil' Dicky) Cloudsdale, oak 35cm x 20.5cm (13 ¾in x 8in) Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 322
ROBERT ADAMS (BRITISH 1917-1984) SLIM BRONZE NO. 3, 1973 (LARGE VERSION OPUS 347) stamped with signature, dated and numbered 2/6 (to base), also stamped A 72 2/6 (to bronze), bronze 89.5cm high (35 ¼in high) (excluding base); 92cm high (36 ½in high) (including base), 62cm wide (24 3/8in wide) Exhibited: Gimpel Fils, London, Robert Adams, 29 May - 22 June 1974, no.14 (another cast)Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer Gallery, New York, Robert Adams, 17 September - 5 October 1974, no.14 (another cast)Camden Arts Centre, London, Hampstead Artists 1946-86, 1986 (another cast)Literature: Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 1992, no.614, illustrated pp.125 & 233 (another cast) The three works by Robert Adams presented from Hugo Burge’s collection in this sale are a perfect snapshot of three decades of the artist’s output. They encapsulate his interest in screen-like forms that play with the notion of ‘flatness’ within the overall three-dimensional context of sculpture.Adams was part of a ‘golden generation’ of British sculptors who came to prominence in the early 1950s, achieving almost immediate international acclaim and recognition, not least for their ability to capture the uncanny and uneasy mix of optimism and despair that followed World War Two, the liberation of the concentration camps and the dropping of the atomic bomb. Adams was part of the group selected by Herbert Read to exhibit in the British Pavilion at the 1952 Venice Biennale – when he coined the phrase ‘the geometry of fear’ to capture a particular quality of these young sculptors’ work, with their spiky and attenuated forms that spoke to the existential crisis of the post-war period. However, as Alastair Grieve noted in the Preface to his catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work, Adams’ sculpture ‘differs markedly from that of…his contemporaries…as it is purely visual, totally unliterary, constructed from abstract forms and spaces…Abstract art opened the way for a truly expressive use of materials, unhindered by the restraints of representation.’ (Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 1992, p.9) A work such as Screen Form has in fact more in common with an even younger generation of British sculptors such as Anthony Caro (who had begun to make his first cut and welded works in 1960), as well as the American minimalists such as Robert Morris, Donald Judd and Richard Serra – although in Adams’ rough handling of the material, the worn and jagged edges of the plates, he holds something of the memory of the post-war world of twisted metal and bombsites. Also amongst his peers – Lynn Chadwick, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull amongst others – Adams remains relatively undervalued and unheralded – something that no doubt drew Hugo Burge, always a champion of the good but overlooked, to Adams’ work. This could be due simply to the fact that all of Adams’ early works were unique, made of forged and welded steel (he didn’t start making editions until the late 1960s) and so his work couldn’t proliferate on the back of this early critical success. And partly because – like his contemporary Kenneth Armitage, to similar result – Adams refused to be pinned down in the visual language of his 1950s success, but innovated restlessly, not least in becoming ever more abstract. Slim Form, for example, brims with 1960s optimism, of Harold Wilson’s pledge to harness the ‘white heat of technology’, its smooth, polished surface making it the perfect embodiment of both the atomic age and the age of Concorde. In contrast to his sculpture of the previous decade, there are no jagged edges to arrest the eye, to turn you back on yourself. Instead, Adams’ sculpture flows with the space surrounding it and so returns somewhat to the conceptual world occupied by Henry Moore – the artist against whom Read presented the ‘geometry of fear’ artists as a counterpoint. Yet for Moore, this fluidity always stands aligned to the shapes of the landscape, whereas Adams’ art is committed to the urban – although in Cryptic Form we can perhaps see a later career shift back to something more allusive and metaphorical. In this, he shares something in common with his contemporary Turnbull, another artist much admired by Hugo Burge. As the forces of post-Modernism swirled around in the 1980s, these two veteran sculptors embarked on making, to use Turnbull’s expression, universal totems ‘beyond time’.
Lot 119
GODFREY BLOUNT (BRITISH 1859-1937) MALE NUDES IN AN ARCADIAN LANDSCAPE watercolour, gouache and ink on paper 8cm x 22.2cm (3 1/8in x 8 ¾in) Kathleen Hyacinthe Dale (1898-1983); by descent to her daughter, Mary Willcock; thence to her grandchildrenWith H. Blairman & Son, London Godfrey Blount was heavily inspired by the principles of William Morris, John Ruskin and the Arts & Crafts Society which, together with his strong religious beliefs, fuelled his desire to return to a simpler, more traditional way of life. Working as an artist across multiple mediums, his principal legacy was the establishment of the Haslemere Peasant Industries. He studied under the artist Hubert Von Herkomer, whose painting prioritised realistic portrayal of the lives of the poor. Perhaps this realism and sympathy for the working classes directed Blount away from his public school, Oxbridge educated upbringing towards a life amongst the rural poor.Having moved in 1896 to the Surrey village of Haslemere with his wife Ethel, the following year the couple were founding figures of the Haslemere Peasant Industries artistic community. The Industries rejected mass production in favour of rural craft and aimed to create an environment in which work and leisure aligned with philanthropic principles and traditional values. The primary motive was teaching forgotten crafts to the community rather than profit generation. The organisation also acted as an umbrella body, heading up small workshops which employed local craftspeople, as well as maintaining a small shop in London. Such was the quality of their work that three embroidery hangings are held today in the V&A.;Blount was a prolific publisher, in 1899 releasing his most notable work, the design manual Arbor Vitae. During the First World War he had a printing press with which he produced pamphlets as well as greeting cards and decorative plates.
Lot 230
ATTRIBUTED TO STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894-1978) MINIATURE BOOKCASE / SHELF, MID-20TH CENTURY walnut with exposed joints 32.5cm high, 36.5cm wide, 26cm deep (12 ¾in high, 14 3/8in wide, 10 ¼in deep) Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 326
ALISON WATT O.B.E., F.R.S.E., R.S.A. (SCOTTISH B.1965) STOCKING, 2020-21 oil on canvas 75cm x 62cm (29 ½in x 24 ½in) (unframed) Exhibited: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Alison Watt: A Portrait Without Likeness, 17 July 2021- 9 January 2022‘I can’t deny the lure of the past.’ – Alison WattAlison Watt is one of the UK’s most respected painters working today. Her oeuvre has gradually evolved since her figurative works first came to public attention at her sold out Glasgow School of Art degree show. Over time the figures left our line of sight, leaving only the suggestion of their presence, her paintings pushing almost to the point of abstraction in her famous canvases of minimalistic white drapery. The latest direction - represented by the two works offered here - is markedly different again, though along a logical continuum. The figures have left the frame entirely and what remains is a psychological examination of their vestiges. Those familiar with her career will recognise that her work’s current iteration is the next step in her on-going exploration of, as she puts it, ‘the different ways in which a human being can be represented without being present…’Though an artist with a singular voice, her work is underpinned by a fascination with and debt to the precise and lusciously detailed work of the Old Masters. It was this aspect of her work that the Scottish National Portrait Gallery sought to explore in their exhibition Alison Watt: A Portrait Without Likeness (Edinburgh, 2021-2022), which juxtaposed Watt with the work of one of her great inspirations, Allan Ramsay. Watt immersed herself in the gallery’s collection of Ramsays, including accessing his archived sketchbooks. The resultant body of work was exhibited alongside two of his most celebrated portraits, those of his first and second wives. Many of the aspects Watt admires in Ramsay’s work, she also shares: the simplicity and “geometry” of composition, balanced against the fine detail and delicacy of technique, and a depth of feeling tangible in the painting process itself. Ramsay’s portraiture is celebrated for its deep intimacy; his best work is frequently said to be of the interesting, intellectual women of his close acquaintance. Watt conveys that same intimacy in the present paintings, an unspoken narrative suggested in the quiet grandeur of her still lives. She raises gentle, unanswered questions about the objects’ symbolism. In Watt’s own words, the still life ‘can both offer you familiarity with an object, but also transcend the everyday.’Stocking was one of the works created for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery exhibition, with Frances a continued exploration on the theme in 2022. The cabbage leaf in the latter is a reference to the one held by Ramsay’s sitter Lady Boscawen in his portrait of her of 1747. In the exhibition catalogue text, historian Tom Normand remarks on the eccentricity of Ramsay’s choice of such an object as a prop. At face value, Boscawen was a keen horticulturalist, and on a second level it might be understood to represent the mother of five’s fecundity. Watt, intrigued by the mystery, amplifies it further by isolating the object and placing it within a contextless blank backdrop. As with Watt's famously allusive folds of drapery, the elevation of a mundane object and the strange intimacy this choice engenders makes complex what at first appears simple. As Normand puts it, the cabbage leaf ‘is revealed as a charismatic organism. Its familiarity is complemented by its wild exoticism; its mundane aspect becomes a strangely erotic cypher.’ Boscawen, a painting closely related to Stocking and Frances, was purchased for the Scottish national collection with support from the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland in 2022.
Lot 325
ALISON WATT O.B.E., F.R.S.E., R.S.A. (SCOTTISH B.1965) FRANCES, 2022 signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘8th August 2022’ to stretcher verso, oil on canvas 76cm x 62cm (30in x 24 ½in) (unframed) Exhibited: Tristan Hoare Gallery, London, A Kind of Longing, 3 February - 10 March 2023‘I can’t deny the lure of the past.’ – Alison WattAlison Watt is one of the UK’s most respected painters working today. Her oeuvre has gradually evolved since her figurative works first came to public attention at her sold out Glasgow School of Art degree show. Over time the figures left our line of sight, leaving only the suggestion of their presence, her paintings pushing almost to the point of abstraction in her famous canvases of minimalistic white drapery. The latest direction - represented by the two works offered here - is markedly different again, though along a logical continuum. The figures have left the frame entirely and what remains is a psychological examination of their vestiges. Those familiar with her career will recognise that her work’s current iteration is the next step in her on-going exploration of, as she puts it, ‘the different ways in which a human being can be represented without being present…’Though an artist with a singular voice, her work is underpinned by a fascination with and debt to the precise and lusciously detailed work of the Old Masters. It was this aspect of her work that the Scottish National Portrait Gallery sought to explore in their exhibition Alison Watt: A Portrait Without Likeness (Edinburgh, 2021-2022), which juxtaposed Watt with the work of one of her great inspirations, Allan Ramsay. Watt immersed herself in the gallery’s collection of Ramsays, including accessing his archived sketchbooks. The resultant body of work was exhibited alongside two of his most celebrated portraits, those of his first and second wives. Many of the aspects Watt admires in Ramsay’s work, she also shares: the simplicity and “geometry” of composition, balanced against the fine detail and delicacy of technique, and a depth of feeling tangible in the painting process itself. Ramsay’s portraiture is celebrated for its deep intimacy; his best work is frequently said to be of the interesting, intellectual women of his close acquaintance. Watt conveys that same intimacy in the present paintings, an unspoken narrative suggested in the quiet grandeur of her still lives. She raises gentle, unanswered questions about the objects’ symbolism. In Watt’s own words, the still life ‘can both offer you familiarity with an object, but also transcend the everyday.’Stocking was one of the works created for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery exhibition, with Frances a continued exploration on the theme in 2022. The cabbage leaf in the latter is a reference to the one held by Ramsay’s sitter Lady Boscawen in his portrait of her of 1747. In the exhibition catalogue text, historian Tom Normand remarks on the eccentricity of Ramsay’s choice of such an object as a prop. At face value, Boscawen was a keen horticulturalist, and on a second level it might be understood to represent the mother of five’s fecundity. Watt, intrigued by the mystery, amplifies it further by isolating the object and placing it within a contextless blank backdrop. As with Watt's famously allusive folds of drapery, the elevation of a mundane object and the strange intimacy this choice engenders makes complex what at first appears simple. As Normand puts it, the cabbage leaf ‘is revealed as a charismatic organism. Its familiarity is complemented by its wild exoticism; its mundane aspect becomes a strangely erotic cypher.’ Boscawen, a painting closely related to Stocking and Frances, was purchased for the Scottish national collection with support from the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland in 2022.
Lot 229
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894-1978) TRAY, 1936 incised artist's mark and craftsman's mark, oak 34.5cm x 60cm (13 ½in x 23 5/8in) Hill House Antiques, London Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 116
GODFREY BLOUNT (BRITISH 1859-1937) EIGHT ILLUSTRATED ALLEGORICAL VERSES watercolour, gouache and ink (2) each 12.5cm x 8.7cm (4 7/8in x 3 3/8in), all under two mounts Kathleen Hyacinthe Dale (1898-1983); by descent to her daughter, Mary Willcock; thence to her grandchildrenWith H. Blairman & Son, London Godfrey Blount was heavily inspired by the principles of William Morris, John Ruskin and the Arts & Crafts Society which, together with his strong religious beliefs, fuelled his desire to return to a simpler, more traditional way of life. Working as an artist across multiple mediums, his principal legacy was the establishment of the Haslemere Peasant Industries. He studied under the artist Hubert Von Herkomer, whose painting prioritised realistic portrayal of the lives of the poor. Perhaps this realism and sympathy for the working classes directed Blount away from his public school, Oxbridge educated upbringing towards a life amongst the rural poor.Having moved in 1896 to the Surrey village of Haslemere with his wife Ethel, the following year the couple were founding figures of the Haslemere Peasant Industries artistic community. The Industries rejected mass production in favour of rural craft and aimed to create an environment in which work and leisure aligned with philanthropic principles and traditional values. The primary motive was teaching forgotten crafts to the community rather than profit generation. The organisation also acted as an umbrella body, heading up small workshops which employed local craftspeople, as well as maintaining a small shop in London. Such was the quality of their work that three embroidery hangings are held today in the V&A.;Blount was a prolific publisher, in 1899 releasing his most notable work, the design manual Arbor Vitae. During the First World War he had a printing press with which he produced pamphlets as well as greeting cards and decorative plates.
Lot 331
ROBERT ADAMS (BRITISH 1917-1984) CRYPTIC FORM No. 1, 1980 (OPUS 394) stamped, dated and numbered ADAMS 1980 1/6 (on the underside), cast in an edition of six, bronze 31cm high, 17cm wide (12 ¼in high, 6 ¾in wide) Literature: Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 1992, no.662, illustrated p.239 (another cast)The three works by Robert Adams presented from Hugo Burge’s collection in this sale are a perfect snapshot of three decades of the artist’s output. They encapsulate his interest in screen-like forms that play with the notion of ‘flatness’ within the overall three-dimensional context of sculpture.Adams was part of a ‘golden generation’ of British sculptors who came to prominence in the early 1950s, achieving almost immediate international acclaim and recognition, not least for their ability to capture the uncanny and uneasy mix of optimism and despair that followed World War Two, the liberation of the concentration camps and the dropping of the atomic bomb. Adams was part of the group selected by Herbert Read to exhibit in the British Pavilion at the 1952 Venice Biennale – when he coined the phrase ‘the geometry of fear’ to capture a particular quality of these young sculptors’ work, with their spiky and attenuated forms that spoke to the existential crisis of the post-war period. However, as Alastair Grieve noted in the Preface to his catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work, Adams’ sculpture ‘differs markedly from that of…his contemporaries…as it is purely visual, totally unliterary, constructed from abstract forms and spaces…Abstract art opened the way for a truly expressive use of materials, unhindered by the restraints of representation.’ (Alastair Grieve, The Sculpture of Robert Adams, The Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 1992, p.9) A work such as Screen Form has in fact more in common with an even younger generation of British sculptors such as Anthony Caro (who had begun to make his first cut and welded works in 1960), as well as the American minimalists such as Robert Morris, Donald Judd and Richard Serra – although in Adams’ rough handling of the material, the worn and jagged edges of the plates, he holds something of the memory of the post-war world of twisted metal and bombsites. Also amongst his peers – Lynn Chadwick, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull amongst others – Adams remains relatively undervalued and unheralded – something that no doubt drew Hugo Burge, always a champion of the good but overlooked, to Adams’ work. This could be due simply to the fact that all of Adams’ early works were unique, made of forged and welded steel (he didn’t start making editions until the late 1960s) and so his work couldn’t proliferate on the back of this early critical success. And partly because – like his contemporary Kenneth Armitage, to similar result – Adams refused to be pinned down in the visual language of his 1950s success, but innovated restlessly, not least in becoming ever more abstract. Slim Form, for example, brims with 1960s optimism, of Harold Wilson’s pledge to harness the ‘white heat of technology’, its smooth, polished surface making it the perfect embodiment of both the atomic age and the age of Concorde. In contrast to his sculpture of the previous decade, there are no jagged edges to arrest the eye, to turn you back on yourself. Instead, Adams’ sculpture flows with the space surrounding it and so returns somewhat to the conceptual world occupied by Henry Moore – the artist against whom Read presented the ‘geometry of fear’ artists as a counterpoint. Yet for Moore, this fluidity always stands aligned to the shapes of the landscape, whereas Adams’ art is committed to the urban – although in Cryptic Form we can perhaps see a later career shift back to something more allusive and metaphorical. In this, he shares something in common with his contemporary Turnbull, another artist much admired by Hugo Burge. As the forces of post-Modernism swirled around in the 1980s, these two veteran sculptors embarked on making, to use Turnbull’s expression, universal totems ‘beyond time’.
Lot 226
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894–1978) ARTS & CRAFTS WARDROBE, 1935 incised artist's mark and monogram of Ernest John Oldcorn to the inside left-hand cupboard, oak, with ebony handles 172cm high, 165cm wide, 59cm deep (67 ½in high, 65in wide, 23 ¼in deep) Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 250
STANLEY WEBB DAVIES (BRITISH 1894–1978) ARTS & CRAFTS ARMCHAIR, 1936 incised artist's mark and craftsman's mark, oak, with drop-in leather seat 87cm high, 53cm wide, 44cm deep (34 ¼in high, 21in wide, 17 ¼in deep) Stanley Webb Davies belonged to the generation of designers whose principles echoed those of the Arts & Crafts visionaries William Morris and John Ruskin. He was opposed to industrialisation, instead placing the craftsman at the centre of production and believing the physical exertion of the making process benefited both the individual and by extension the society within which they lived. All his pieces are incised both with the SWD monogram and a craftsman’s mark, forever preserving the work of the cabinet maker and their link to each item.Davies developed a love of woodwork whilst at school, a passion intensified by his time in France during the First World War building huts for refugees. On his return to England, he worked for three years in Romney Green’s workshop before establishing his own business at Windemere in 1923.The influence of Romney Green and the broader Cotswold School is discernible in Davies’ designs: largely English timber, and decoration provided by constructional details, chamfering or at most a simple inlay.During its nearly forty years of production, the Windemere workshop employed between three and seven staff, building domestic, ecclesiastical, presentation and even office furniture. These pieces were largely completed as commissions, and it seems the firm was never particularly financially successful.
Lot 72
A Royal Crown Derby 1128 Imari pattern dinner plate, 27cm diameter, second quality; an 1128 pattern saucer, 16.5cm diameter, first quality; a 383 pattern dinner plate, second quality; another, Olde Avesbury, second quality; an Asian Rose pattern cake plate, second quality; Posies trinket dishes, etc, qty
Lot 569
A matched set of three Royal Crown Derby Christmas plates, comprising, The First Royal Crown Derby Christmas Plate 1991, limited edition 512/1,500, certificate; The 1992 Christmas Plate, limited edition 1,127/2,000, certificate; The 1993 Christmas Plate, limited edition 462/2,500, certificate, all first quality (3)
Lot 42
Three boxes, the first containing fourteen pairs of shoes and three pairs of boots, size 36, to include examples by J Crew, Burberry, 1937 Footwear, etc., a box containing four pairs of boots to include Ugg and ten pairs of shoes, sizes 35/35.5/36 to include New Balance, Camper, Hobbs, Minelli, etc. and a box containing six trilby hats, a sari, a part sari and six sarongs and other household linen to include bedding and napkins, etc. (3 boxes)
Lot 385
Six albums containing various photographs of models, circa 1990, by JFM Photography, including a typed and hand annotated list inscribed "JFM Photography These are the models that have been invited to work for us on Saturday 28th April 1990 Debbie Ashbee, Nickey Folley, Debbi Clark, Lisa Sheridan, Sue Simmonds, Sue Alexandre, Rachel Elizabeth, Tanya, Jullianne, Kim, Lisa, Penny Black, Marsha Caslin First Set: Conference Room (Upstairs)"
Lot 11
Two single wool interlined curtains in plain red with fixed triple pencil pleat headings, one approx. 246 cm drop x 410 cm wide at bottom and 212 cm wide at top, the other approx. 249 cm x 205 cm wide at bottom and 102 cm wide at top CONDITION REPORTS First curtain condition: good, small signs of moth on hem and a small burn mark to the underside on hem. Second curtain condition: face good, linings fair, some marks. General wear and tear conducive with age and use - see images for more details
Lot 454A
A box of books comprising one volume SIR LAWRENCE WEAVER "High Wycombe furniture" first edition, published The Fanfair Press, London, 1929, tooled and gilded paper board bound with brown paper dust jacket together with letter from the author dated 8th February 1929, F. GORDON ROE "Windsor chairs" published Phoenix House Ltd, London, 1955 with paper dust jacket, IAN HAMILTON "Jean - A Memoir" privately printed London 1941, bears handwritten inscription to the front page "Wednesday February 18th 1941, 1 Hyde Park Gardens, London Dear Lady Robertson...Yours affectionately Ian Hamilton", EDITED BY CAPTAIN H. COTTON MINCHIN "The Legion book", published Cassell & Co Ltd, La Belle Sauvage London EC4, third impression, October 1929 together with two leather bound books "100 best English essays" and "Chambers English Dictionary" both inscribed to the covers "Royal Air Force Halton Bucks December 1932" together with a small quantity of black and white photographs of chairs etc (6 volumes plus photos)
Lot 377
An early 19th Century sketch / notebook, the front page inscribed "Berhia Russell Edinburgh September 9th 1825" containing numerous sketches in pencil and or watercolour and scripts , some original some copied, together with a Victorian scrapbook containing scraps, postcards, etc., "Series of Prints of English History designed as Ornaments for the Apartments in which receive the first rudiments of their education", published John Marshall Cheapside, one volume and WILL FALCONER "The Shipwreck - a Poem", published London Joseph Wenman 1783 (4)
Lot 202
Two Bretby onion shaped vases, a pair of Ditmar floral decorated vases, a Holmegaard green glass bowl, a pair of Arnhem Pottery Lindus pattern aesthetic style vases, a Bretby bronzed glazed miniature teapot, heart shaped stem vase, art glass triangular vase, an Ashstead Pottery character jug depicting Douglas McGarel Hogg inscribed to base "Of a first edition strictly limited to 500 jugs bearing the signature of the Right Hon Sir Douglas McGarel Hogg KCMP and the artist, this is No. 169 Percy Metcalfe", two hedgehog equipment carding brushes etc and a Rudie Delanghe raku ware fruit bowl of tapered trumpet form, 30.5 cm diameter CONDITION REPORTS Three Bretby pieces and raku bowl only: Two Bretby vases both have damage to the rims and crazing through out. The Brerby tea pot / jug has a crack running from the rim down. The raku bowl has two large chips to the rim - one under neither the other on the top and sounds dull to tap. See images for more details.
Lot 182
Byrd's Second Antarctic Expedition 1933-35: twenty-one photographic postcards and covers commemorating the flight of The Floyd Bennett over the South Pole by Admiral Byrd, postcards with official stamps and franks, some other commemorative stamps, well displayed on album leaves with written notes; together with a selection of interesting World and Commonwealth stamps, covers, postcards and ephemera, to include: British Antarctic Territory sets; Uniform and Penny Post envelopes and covers; an album of Norfolk Islands mint stamps; American and other 'first' covers including first flight Las Vegas-Nevada and first voyage of SS Manhattan; cover from the Byrd Antarctic Expedition; United States Postal Card dated 1889; Egyptian cover with British Forces in Egypt stamp to reverse; and other items.
Lot 315
A selection of hardback and other books of general interest, mainly relating to history and literature, titles including: Sweet Songs of Zion, by John Betjeman; With Clive in India, by D. A. Henty; The Blue Nile, by Alan Moorehead, first edition, with dust jacket; The White Nile, by Alan Moorehead, first edition, with dust jacket; The Oxford Dictionary of Quotation; G. A. Henty: A Bibliography, by Robert L. Dartt; Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, edited by Jack Lynch; London 1753, by Sheila O’Connell; and other titles, contained across three boxes.
Lot 179
Channel Islands Second World War interest stamps, covers and ephemera, to include: shades of Guernsey postage stamps; Guernsey first day bisect cover 27th December 1940; two other bisect covers; Jersey first day occupation stamps cover, with three 1/2d bottom left corner, with Evening Post typography 29th January 1942; Jersey postmarks on covers with German stamps; Jersey occupation stamps on newsprint blocks; a cover of occupation stamps used one day after last day of use; a selection of Red Cross messages, some with envelopes; and other items; together with Channel Islands postal history interest items, to include: First World War Prisoner of War letter and reply; 1843 ship letter; 1943 Jersey pictorial stamps used post-war on Air Mail cover; 1842 1st type datestamp letter; Jersey scroll 1st type letter; postcards with Sark and Alderney postmarks; various other postcards, some with French interest; 1852 green 1/- embossed issue with 409 Jersey number cancel; and Channel Islands Jersey and Guernsey mint stamps, Post Office booklet, commemorative booklets, and other items.
Lot 209
A collection of British coinage, Victorian and later, including: three gold plated commemorative coins; a cased set of United Kingdom Crowns, dates including: 1965, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1980; a set of Britain’s first issue of decimal coins; a coin album containing Victorian and later coinage; The Emblem Series Decimals Of Elizabeth II Coin Set (incomplete); Her Majesty’s Jubilee Coinage Diamond Edition Coin Set (incomplete); The Pre-Decimals Of Queen Elizabeth II Coin Set (incomplete); together with a selection of other items, including: a silver President’s Jewel for The Institution Of The Water Engineers; a silver Northern Inventions Exhibition 1935 medal; other medals; four presentation packs; a Princess Diana Coin first day cover; and a Queen Elizabeth II first day cover.
Lot 475
Testimonial and Charity football match programmes plus signed books, including: Sportsmans Aid Society Charity Football Match at West Ham 1st May 1958; Charlie Hurley Testimonial Match 4th October 1967; Jackie Milburn Testimonial 10th May 1967; Stanley Matthews XI v World Stars, 28th April 1965; Bobby Mitchell Testimonial 9th October; Bert Trautmann Testimonial 15th April 1964; Ollie Burton testimonial 14th May 1973; Kevin Keegan Auf Wiedersehen tribute; and Frank Clark Testimonial; books with signatures include, Clown Prince of Soccer Len Shackleton; Feet First Again by Stanley Matthews; By The Book by Clive Thomas; Henry Cooper an Autobiography; unsigned Jackie Milburn's Newcastle United Scrapbook. (14)
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