POUNDWISE Padrayla Holdsworth answers readers’ letters May/June 09

Dear P.H. Dear P.H. I bought a plate which I thought was Minton, Could you please advise of any schools or but have not been able to find out anything establishments (in the UK and Ireland) that about it. Maybe it’s a copy. It’s in good offer appraisal classes/courses for individuals condition and the colours are really nice. interested in obtaining training in antiques/arts Many thanks, H.W. Leeds appraising? Thank you very much! Sincerely, K.R. U.S.A Dear H.W. I do not believe the plate to be by Minton. If the Dear K.R. three dots were a Minton date code, one would There are a number of courses available expect this to be impressed. My feeling is that relating specifically to antique furniture: the plate is German, probably from the 1870s One is run by Chris Wilde at Hemswell Antique Wedgwood looks to be the inspiration for and inspired by Wedgwood majolica. Centre in Lincolnshire: Chris Wilde Antiques, this Continental majolica plate. Wedgwood produced a similar design featuring Tel 44(0)1423 506030 or 07831 543268. Thetis and with similar border pattern and the Email: [email protected] date code for 1871. German factories www.chriswildeantiques.co.uk. There is also a frequently imitated Wedgwood pottery at this ten week part time antique furniture evening at time. It is not possible to say which pottery was Barnet College, London: www.barnet.ac.uk. responsible but the low number 36 might University of Manchester, M13 9PL holds one suggest the plate was produced early in the life day weekend courses on Antique English of the firm. Furniture. English Antique Furniture 1560- Yours P.H. 1760 date yet to be confirmed. Tel: 44(0)161 275 3275. Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London These marks do not help identify it but led Dear P.H. (Tel: 020 7462 2490) runs short courses. the owner to think it was by Minton. I wonder if you could identify the artist’s Contact address: Emilie Faure, Sotheby’s initials on the bottom of this Doulton vase? It Institute Of Art, London, 30 Bedford Square looks a little like ‘GL’ or ‘GT’, but I can’t find Camden WC1B 3EE. General Enquiries: it in any reference site that I can use. 44(0)20 7293 5000. Gow Antiques & Kind regards and thank you in anticipation, Restoration Ltd, Pitscandly Farm, Forfar, B.H. Scarborough Angus DD8 3NZ, Scotland runs several courses including furniture. 2009 dates: July Doulton potter’s monogram on a vase but Dear B.H. 6th, 7th, 8th, October 6th, 7th, 8th. Telephone: whose initials? I am sorry but we have all drawn a blank on 44(0)1307 465 342. Fax: 44(0)1307 468 973. this one. Perhaps a reader can identify the Email: [email protected] potter responsible. www.knowyourantiques.com Yours P.H. Correspondence courses are run at The Regent Academy: www.regentacademy.com. Dear P.H. Understanding Antiques, Understanding Style Please be kind enough to let me know about in Antiques, How to Buy and Sell Antiques. this vase which has been with our family for a Call freephone: 0800 378 281. There are also period of above 100 years. And according to several correspondence courses (Furniture, my knowledge this has been brought to the Art, Porcelain) run by National Home Study. country by a British gentleman named George These include restoration techniques. Baker. Hoping that you will be able to help me www.nationalhomestudy.co.uk/art_and_design out. Thanking you. _courses.htm. Tel: 0870 242 7141. R.D. Sri Lanka [email protected] Degree courses relating to antiques are Dear R.D. available at the following universities: A metal vase which has spent over 100 Your vase appears to be made from spelter, an www.leeds.ac.uk www.tees.ac.uk/ years in Sri Lanka. alloy of zinc. The diamond registration mark www.solent.ac.uk (Arts Industry Management) indicates that the design was registered on the Yours P.H. 23rd of April 1881. It is possible to find out which firm registered the design at: The Dear P.H. National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, I write to ask for your help, as you have been TW9 4DU. Tel: +44 (0) 20 8876 3444. very kind in the past helping me to identify http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk objects I have sent. This object is a figurine of The diamond registration mark dates it Yours P.H. a pig, standing nine inches tall, and has some to 1881. damage. I have had this item for over 30 years and bought in a country sale. It looks like Delft A. Godden published by Barrie & Jenkins and has small glass eyes. Can you tell me the 1991. The following is a very useful book but age and where or whom was the maker? Thank does not cover pottery marks, just porcelain: you for your time and help. Title is ‘Directory of European Porcelain’ by Yours sincerely, W.D.London Ludwig Danckert published by Robert Hale Limited, 2004. It is worth looking on Dear W.D. www.amazon.co.uk if you cannot find these Your pig is an example of French faience so I books at fairs, and you will be unlikely to find discussed it with specialist Ivor Hughes. He Cushion & Honey at fairs. told me that it is typical of the animal pieces Yours P.H. made in Desvres, near Calais, around 1900 - cows, cats and pigs were popular, all with those Dear P.H. glass eyes. The signature seems to be a mixture I have recently bought a vase in a charity shop. from several factories. It looks most like that of It has a stamp on it with a circle round Brittania Gaetan Level (1888-1900) but has one or two and the words B.P. co ltd made in Great Britain elements of signatures from the others. Maybe around the circle. It also has the numbers A faience pig bought at a country sale has the decorator had just moved from Level to 1036/2420 A painted on it in black. The stamp puzzled its owner for 30 years. another, was too used to signing GL and is green. Also over the words B.P. co ltd the remembered half way through. words Scotch Ivory is printed. I can find very Yours P.H. little info about this company. Hope you can help. Many thanks, Dear P.H. Regards. L.S. Woodford Green Please tell me more about this Oriental porcelain tea set consisting of a teapot, sugar Dear L.S. bowl and jug plus twelve cups and saucers. Your vase was made by the Britannia Pottery There is a floral type mark underneath. It is Co. Ltd. of St. Rollox, Glasgow between 1920 French owned and bought by a family member and 1935, formerly known as Cochran & in approximately 1870, and has been in the Fleming (1896 to 1920) having originally been family ever since. founded in 1846 by R. Cochran & Co. Ivor Hughes identifies it as from Desvres near Calais. Yours sincerely, B.M. France. Yours P.H.

Dear B.M. Dear P.H. Your tea set is Japanese and dates from the I have recently purchased a bracket clock by 1920s or 1930s. The mark underneath is known Barraud of Cornhill (late seventeeth/early as the ‘Cherry Blossom’ and was introduced in eighteenth century double fusee, verge 1924 by the Nippon Toki Kasha Company escapement). Do you have any information on (Noritake Company) for use by sub contractors the maker? It requires a service and minor predominantly producing wares for export to repair and later on restoration. I have checked the U.S.A. the service directory but it is difficult to appre- Yours P.H. ciate if any entry relates to service/repairs or According to family tradition, this was bought in France in about 1870. restoration - do you have any information on Dear P.H. bracket clock repairers? Could you recommend a reference book for Yours sincerely, S.G. china marks. R.C. Weymouth Dear S.G. The Barraud family were of Huguenot origin. Dear R.C. Between 1759 and 1794 Francis and Paul The mark shows it to be twentieth century, If I was going to buy just one book on Pottery Jonothan Barraud were based at Wine Office but the original owner may have dated it & Porcelain Marks, I would buy: ‘Handbook of Court in London, making watches. In about from 1870. Pottery and Porcelain Marks’ by J. P. Cushion 1795 chronometer maker Paul Philip Barraud and W. B. Honey, published by Faber & Faber established his firm at 85/86 Cornhill, London. Readers’ Letters 1986. This covers British, European, Chinese In 1838 Barraud went into partnership with Readers’ letters are welcomed on any subject and Japanese marks, both pottery and porce- John Richard Lund, after which the company associated with antiques and collecting. We are interested in any problems that readers’ might lain. If your interest is specifically British, then was known as Barraud & Lund. They became have or criticism of the industry as well as your buy the following, which can be found famous for their marine and pocket chrono- personal information requests. Send to: The reasonably priced at the large showground meters, supplied to the navy. The business Editor, Antiques Info, Wallsend House, PO Box 93, Broadstairs, Kent CT10 3YR. fairs such as Newark: ‘Encyclopaedia of ceased operating in 1929. I have sent you a list E-mail: [email protected] British Pottery and Porcelain Marks’, Geoffrey of clock repairers in your area. Yours P.H. Dear P.H. owner’s desk. Interestingly the maker, Thomas We have recently purchased a silver trophy by Harper of Fleet Street, who entered this Elkington & Co of Birmingham, hallmarked hallmark in May 1790, was a leading Mason for 1913. As you see from the photograph, it is of the time. He was controversial in Masonic very ornate, weighs approximately 80oz and circles, and was threatened with expulsion there are no monograms or inscriptions on the from the Premier Grand Lodge of England in trophy, only the maker's mark. We suspect 1803 due to his involvement with the rival from the design, with laurel handles and a Antient or Athol Freemasonry. He must have winged angel holding a laurel wreath, that this been a skilled diplomat as well as silversmith trophy has been specially commissioned. because the eventual upshot of the disagree- Elkington & Co merged with Mappin & Webb ment was the unification of the two lodges ten in 1963 and if possible could you give us some years later. The Silver Society journal (No. 19 indication of who commissioned it and for from 2005) has an article entitled ‘Thomas what purpose or any information where Harper, Masonic jeweller and the jewels of his Elkington & Co past records would be kept? period’ by Timothy Kent. Access to Elkington’s records may tell more We trust you may be able to help in Yours P.H. about this silver trophy. researching this so as to gain providence of what exactly it was made for. Dear P.H. Many thanks, C.F. Southampton I am looking for the Franz Bergman stamp which was applied to cold painted bronzes and Dear C.F. any other information you can give me. I think the date you mention could be signif- Thanking you S.C.Lincolnshire icant here. I doubt whether it was necessarily This mystery silver item certainly puzzled a especially commissioned because one would Dear S.C. lot of people. expect a commission piece to be engraved. I am emailing you a photograph of the It is more probable that Elkington produced Bergmann mark and a drawing, which is trophies just before the outbreak of the First clearer. Franz Bergmann (1838-1894) was World War, which did not find purchasers born in Gablonz, Bohemia and later moved to because of the war, and therefore remained Vienna, where he started a bronze foundry. unengraved. To find out more about this I His son Franz Xaver Bergmann (1861-1936) suggest, in the first instance, you contact: inherited the business and continued with Victoria and Albert Museum Archive of Art & many of the same designs. He opened a new Design, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, foundry in 1900 after which time the products SW7 2RL. Tel: 020 7942 2000. were marked with the amphora mark with B Collections: Metalwork Tel: 020 7942 2468 inside it. Top of the range items were marked E-mail: [email protected] The archive ‘Nam Greb’. (Bergman backwards). contains documents relating to Elkington & Yours P.H. Co. and covers this date. Yours P.H. Dear P.H. A friend of mine has asked me if I could find Dear P.H. out the name of this Clarice Cliff plate design. I request your help in identifying the curious I was hoping you or your readers may be able article of which I enclose a picture. It has clear to answer my question? hallmarks for London 1804, maker TH. What Regards C.M. A drawing of the Bergmann mark found on cold painted bronzes. on earth is it? I can only think it is some sort of a sliding piece for a larger item. I know you Dear C.M. will be able to instantly identify it, or at least Your friend’s plate is in the Taormina pattern, know somebody who can. I am grateful to you more frequently seen in orange. for your help. Yours P.H. Thank you very much. J.F. Dear P.H. Dear J.F. Please can you let me have details of clock Your mystery object is a Masonic item in the restorers in Kent? form of a plumb line, which originally would Thank you, K.W. Kent have incorporated a silver cord and bob. Masons today still have similar shaped items Dear K.W. 1799, The Taormina pattern is unusually in blue but smaller, for sewing on their costumes. A list is being sent to you. on this Clarice Cliff plate. Yours may well have had pride of place on the Yours P.H. Initials on a London, 1901 3.25in high silver inkwell caused excitement for its purchaser. He bought it at auction last July at a dispersal sale of the William Tallon Collection at Reeman Dansie Auctions, Colchester. Tallon, otherwise known as ‘Backstairs Billy’ worked for the Royal Family for forty years and his Collection included letters, notes and gifts. It was not the Royal connection which caught the eye of our subscriber, but rather the maker’s initials. JTH and JHM meant the item was by John Thomas Heath & John Hartshorne Middleton. Heath had previously been half of Hukin and Heath, famous for using designs by Dr Christopher Dresser. The owner was hoping Dresser might have been the designer of this inkwell, which would certainly have made it a bargain. Heath and Middleton, who first registered their joint hallmark in 1886, also produced Dresser designed or inspired items, but not unfortunately in this case. Definitely Georgian in inspi- ration, the inkwell shows no influence from the great designer. It is however a pleasing design from Disappointingly for the owner, this a highly regarded firm. The pattern number 14902 is quite a late one, by which time Heath & handsome silver inkwell is Georgian in style and nothing to do with Dresser. Middleton were tending to looking elsewhere for inspiration. Dresser died in 1904 and there is very little from the early years of the twentieth century which can be attributed to him. The price paid at auction was £160 which I suggested was about right.

An Argentine tenant of a London flat left this frame behind when vacating the premises. This was probably a mistake on their part because it does appear to be made of tortoiseshell. One feature suggesting it is A scrap of paper on the back says ‘Recalcati’. made from tortoiseshell and not plastic is the random nature of the pattern. Plastic tends to have vertical design especially noticeable on large pieces. Another is that instead of being moulded in one piece it is made of four pieces joined. It is backed with wood, on which is stuck a scrap of old paper with an Italian name on it, Recalcati. I suggested the owner look at it with the aid of a ultra violet torch in dark conditions, (e.g. under a sofa). The frame measures 13in x 10.5in and so it is of an impressive size for such an item. I suggested a retail value of £300 to £350 assuming it to be tortoiseshell, whereas an imitation will be of decorative value only.

This intriguing mirror was left behind by an Argentine tenant. This oil painting of Madonna and child measuring 46cm x 36cm was purchased on ebay for £187. It is in poor condition with two small holes and a larger one to the left. The owner bought it with a view to restoration if it is worth doing so. The picture is mid European (Germany/Austria/ Hungary/Czechoslovakia) and of average quality. There is a limit to the value of such items if unsigned and unattributed. The price paid is about right but it is unlikely to increase much in value if restored. The type of canvas used and the stretcher along with the style of the painting suggest late eighteenth century. The picture requires relining and overpainting. The cost of this if the owner has to pay would not be justified by any increase in value. If she undertakes the work herself, this might make more sense. The problem is that the degree of overpainting necessary will result in a picture so restored that the value as an old picture will be reduced.

Is this oil painting really worth restoring?

This monkey has lived with the same family for over sixty years. I can safely say that is from the U.S.A. The velveteen paws are characteristic of toys from the Knickerbocker factory during the 1920s and 1930s although their monkeys usually have felt paws without plush on the top side. The face is however, characteristic of the Knickerbocker monkey. In the absence of a label, I cannot be 100% certain that it is by this factory as a less well known American company could have copied the design, although this is unlikely. The absence of a label will affect the value, which I suggested Knickerbocker style monkey from the U.S.A. to be £60 to £80. has been in the family over sixty years. The initials The initials

The initials

The initials