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22 February 2012 04:42
ANTIQUES
Buyers go potty for stoneware
A stoneware charger by potter David Leach sold for £420 in the February sale at the Lincoln auction rooms.
The charger, which was included in a collection of over two hundred pieces of studio pottery amassed by a Lincoln man over the last thirty years, made up the largest section of the sale at auctioneers Golding Young & Thos. Mawer.
Auctioneer John Leatt says, “The vendor, who wished to remain anonymous, collected these items of studio pottery over many years. The collection featured important pieces by potter David Leach including the stoneware charger decorated in the Japanese style which sold for £420. There were also several unusual pieces by Takeshi Taseda, Walter Keeler, Ray Finch and Richard Phethean. We received a lot of interest from collectors before the sale and the whole collection sold very well with many buyers travelling considerable distances to attend in person and others bidding live over the Internet and leaving commission bids before the sale.”
The English studio potter David Leach OBE was the eldest son of Bernard Leach who is regarded as the ‘Father of British studio pottery’. Born in Tokyo in 1911, David was first taught to pot by his father’s friend, the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada. He studied as a pottery manager at North Staffordshire Technical College and joined the family business, the Leach Pottery, in 1930, staying on and off for 25 years. In 1953 he headed Loughborough College’s ceramics department and established the Aylesford Pottery in 1954, moving to Bovey Tracey in Devon a year later to set up Lowerdown Pottery where he became known for his porcelain.
He was chairman of the Craft Potters’ Association of Great Britain in 1967 and exhibited widely in the UK as well as New York, Washington, Tokyo, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, Heidelberg and Munich. In 1987, he was awarded the OBE for his work in studio pottery and his services to education. He died in 2005, aged 93, leaving three sons John, Jeremy and Simon who are all potters.
Among the collection, a studio pottery bowl by Takeshi Yasuda sold for £740, well over its £100 to £200 estimate. The bowl was made of sansai oxidised stoneware and featured a signed original paper label to the underside.
In the furniture section, a 19th century Portugese cedar wood chest, decorated with lions and urns on bracket feet, sold for £1200, well above its £500 to £800 estimate, and a Victorian figured mahogany pedestal desk also sold for £1200. A two stone diamond cross-over ring, set in yellow metal, was estimated at £550 to £650 and sold for £1000 and a Victorian silver coffee pot and teapot bearing a unicorn and crown crest by Edward and John Barnard in London in 1860 sold for £700.
An interesting group of medals awarded to former dentist Major GE Moss from Forest Town, Mansfield sold to a local collector for £220, well above its £80 and £120 estimate. The medals were a Great War for Civilisation medal, a 1914-18 medal and a City of Lincoln medal awarded for services in the Great War. Major Moss commanded the 6th Mansfield Battalion of the Home Guard from 1942 onwards. He was a native of Lincoln who joined the Lincolnshire Regiment in August 1914 and served in France that year, eventually moving to the Machine Gun Corp in 1917. On returning to the Western Front was attached to the 51st Highland division. He was later taken prisoner and on the cessation of hostilities, he retired from the army with the rank of Lieutenant.
A large album of mainly topographical postcards sold for a hammer price of £340 against an estimate of £100 to £150.
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