Japanese swords – More than just Kill Bill

Posted on November 2, 2020August 22, 2024 by Doerr Dallas Valuations

I was interested to read an article from my colleague Alastair about the rise in interest in luggage and hand bags in the auction market. Not only are these bags finely made, but the rarity of their manufacture is making them both sought after and valuable pieces, increasing their prestige and elevating the status of their owners.

In the 21st century a bag or indeed a watch can mark out an individual as someone of some status and wealth.

During the 18th and 19th centuries in Japan the ruling class of the day, the Samurai, carried a sword as a symbol of power and status. The sword, even when its use was reduced with the invention of the gun, still gave the owner his warrior spirit well into the 20th century, even if the sword, like the one my grandfather liberated in the War, was poorly produced.

The Sword had almost mystical properties and when held in the hands of a Master, it was considered to be alive and have a spirit of its own. The men who made the sword were alchemists as they forged metal with fire and skill to produce objects that were both beautiful and lethal.

As you will no doubt know, the fictional character in Quentin Tarrantino’s film Kill Bill goes to Okinawa, an island famous for a type of Karate and the fact that it has a high number of Centenarians, to obtain a sword from a retired sword maker. He refuses to give her one from his collection but is obliged by his sense of honour to make a sword, which he says will take a month.

The production of a sword is a lengthy process, even in this century, so one suspects that either he has a stash of partly made swords in his shed or the film is not as accurately researched as this article. Making a sword is a rare and physical challenge, no less because blades can break in the tempering process, but also there are limited people who are skilled enough to manufacture them and the quality of steel to produce them is made in limited quantities.

A traditional Japanese sword is made from Tamahagane steel, which is made from two types of iron sand, a source of iron ore, heated to approximately 1000c in a Tatara, a type of clay furnace. The firing takes approximately 5-7 days and over this time iron sand and charcoal is sprinkled into a pre-made crucible in the middle of the pine charcoal fired furnace, and subjected to firing, until it is judged to be ready to retrieve. The furnace is broken open and a red-hot lump of precious steel is removed from the furnace, to be cooled and graded. The most important aspect of the steel is its carbon content as this will affect the durability of the blade.

Both traditional iron foundry’s and swordsmiths will work in a forge that is considered a shrine and they themselves may be honoured as national treasures. There is often a Shinto alter in the workshop and devotions are made every day to the Gods for the protection of the workers and the smith.

Tamahagane steel

The swordsmith will take delivery of a selection of pieces of steel that the foundry master has chosen. Normally these are found on the edges of the block of steel produced as they have most contact with air and carbon.

The blocks are arranged around a bar, covered in rice paper and clay slurry. The whole is heated in a furnace to 1200c and then hammered into a complete block, usually with two of the master’s apprentices. The hammering purifies the steel and the work reduces the initial weight of the ingot by 50%. The block is hammered to a plaque and the folded along its length continuously, creating a laminate of steel with multiple layers which ultimately gives the finished blade a grain.

A Japanese swordsmith with his assistants

The ultimate property of the sword blade is that it is strong, but flexible. The blade must be extremely sharp and hard, but it has to have a softer centre and back to gain flexibility. This flexibility is introduced to the sword by placing a softer iron interior to the blade, which is forged into it before the sword is formed. The initial ingot of steel is created into a long U cross section, into which the soft core is introduced and then the ingot can start to be unified and lengthened into a blade form, with the bevelled edge. The smith will work the blade meticulously as his work will add to the ‘fibre’ and construction of the steel. It will be well shaped before it is ready to tempered, a process of the hardening of the metal. He will also form the tang, a tongue like piece of metal onto which the sword fittings and hilt will be mounted. This tang is often signed by the maker.

When viewing a Japanese sword blade you will note that there is a pattern to the surface called a Hamon, a sort of cloud like effect that appears along its length which is separate to the folded gain of the steel. This is created when the blade is hardened. A mixture of clay and carbon in the form of a slurry is painted over the blade, protecting the softer elements. A pattern is created in the slurry that is unique to the swordsmith and adds an artistic expression to the blade. The blade is then heated to approximately 800c and when the smith judges it to be ready and hot enough, it is plunged into cold water. The areas of the steel which receive a thinner coat of clay slurry become very hard and will take the edge of the weapon. The areas with a thicker clay coating will cool less rapidly preserving the flexibility of the sword blade. The cooling and tempering process also forms the curve and shape of the blade.

The Hamon of a Japanese sword

The blade is now ready to undergo polishing, which in the first instance will be done by the swordsmith to check for imperfections in the blade, but then will be sent to a master blade polisher. It will be his job to refine the surface of the blade, revealing all the smiths work, the hamon created in the tempering process and sharpening the blade to a razer like edge capable of cutting blades of hair or realistically flesh and bone. He will use various grades of stone, clays and powders to grind and polish the blade to a mirror like finish. This process is approached with some trepidation as the polisher must avoid cutting himself on the edge of the sword, but still achieve a beautiful finish.
Once the blade is made it will be stored in a protective wooden case, called a Shirasaya. This is made of two parts, one to house the blade and one to house the hilt. The hilt part is drilled with one or two holes which have corresponding holes in the tang of the sword, and wooden pegs, called Mekugi, hold the blade into the hilt piece.

There are generally five types of sword seen on the market known as katana, tsurugi, wakizashi, odachi and tanto, each with a defined length, the shortest a tanto being a dagger form.

Review of the Watch Market October 2020

Posted on October 23, 2020August 22, 2024 by James Lowe

The watch market seems to have survived amazingly well over the past six months, both on the retail and auction side. There was even an auction in Hong Kong recently selling only early Seiko watches, a brand that despite being the first to launch a quartz watch in 1969, has in the past fared pretty badly at auction with very low prices generally. However, the sale largely sold out, with several of the rarer watches fetching thousands.

An area of the market which is causing excitement currently is what is known as the Secondary Market. I do stress that it applies to an extremely limited few brands and models, and that for most watches the value still plummets as soon as they leave the shop. Patek Philippe, Rolex, and to a lesser degree Audemars Piguet, are the brands most impacted in this situation and it is only their steel sports or utility ranges rather than the precious metal and bejewelled dress watches that are affected.

Patek Philippe Nautilus

Patek produce only about 6,500 steel watches out of their total annual production of about 65,000. The waiting list for several of their steel ranges can be 18 months to 2 years, so this Secondary Market has emerged. If you were able to purchase a steel Patek Philppe Nautilus at the recommended retail price of about £31,000, keep it in its plastic factory wrap together with all original documents, you could put it on the Secondary Market and ask in excess of £70,000.

Rolex Daytona

A few Rolex and Audemars Piguet models might get you a 50% profit on RRP. Patek say that they are essentially a maker of luxury precious metal watches, not sports watches, and they will not increase production to meet the demand. But I must stress again how this market is relevant to so very few of the watches that come on to the retail market.

Image of Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore watch

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph (re-edition-25th-anniversary)

Another by-product of this market is the emergence of some very convincing well-made fakes – or replicas as they are sometimes called. All the major brands will mark their cases and movements with reference and serial numbers so that with some diligent sleuth work you should be able to safeguard yourself against buying an expensive fake.

Diamonds and Coloured Gems… words of advice from our Jewellery specialist

Posted on October 14, 2020August 22, 2024 by James Lowe

At Doerr Valuations our team of jewellery specialists monitor prices and trends in the international market to make sure that you can be properly informed and looked after.
The jewellery market over the past few years has been unusually volatile for several reasons – some directly due to the general ‘woes of the world’ and some caused by some quite dramatic fluctuations in commodity, material and gem prices.

In 2007, the price per ounce of gold was around the $750 mark – it peaked late in 2012 at $1,890 – and fell back to just over $1,000 in 2014 although it’s edging up to the $1,910/oz mark today.
However, in pieces of gem set jewellery the gold value factor is not huge – the gem prices, manufacturing costs and retail profits are larger factors.

Diamonds, despite what De Beers say in their advertisements, are not rare. Huge deposits of good quality stones are regularly being found in mid-Africa and now Botswana has pretty well become the diamond centre of the world, with De Beers moving their headquarters there from London.

Mining techniques are better and more efficient, so there are more than enough stones to go around. Slackening demand from the Middle and Far East for many of the slightly lower grade stones and sizes have seen noticeable drops in market prices. De Beers and their fellow core suppliers have had to do a lot of juggling and adjustment to try and keep things on an even keel.
However, if the stone is exceptional in all of the three main quality criteria i.e. size, colour and clarity, it will still be very expensive. The trade price of a one carat flawless D colour (the best) stone, is well over twice the price of a one carat H colour and VVS2 clarity (both acceptable commercial qualities) stone.

There have been some exceptional auction prices in 2017 for coloured diamonds, specifically for pink and blue stones… Sotheby’s set a new world record in 4 April 2017 in Hong Kong, when the Pink Star, a 59.60-carat oval mixed-cut Fancy Vivid Pink internally flawless diamond, sold for HK$553 million / US$71.2 million (£57.3 million) including buyer’s premium.

Other spikes in the market include the pearl market, specifically the natural saltwater pearl market. Cultured pearls are natural beads ‘farmed’ in seawater by introducing man made beads in to the soft tissue of an oyster. The oyster’s reaction to these ‘irritations’ is to cover them in ‘nacre’, which is the lustrous shell like covering that we see on the pearl necklaces in most shops. The beads can be 4 or 5 mm in diameter so the thickness of the nacre coating can be pretty thin and lacking in lustre depth. In a natural seawater pearl the oyster takes in the occasional tiny grain of sand around which it builds up the layers of nacre, so in an 8 mm diameter natural pearl you may have 7 mm depth of nacre rather than 3 or 4 mm in a cultured pearl. If you put one of each of these pearls together the wonderful depth of lustre of the natural pearl is very apparent.

Again a laboratory certificate and an up to date valuation is a must. But the main problem for the pearl market is the arrival of freshwater pearls from China. These are farmed in rivers and lakes and not in oysters but in mussels. A mussel can produce more pearls, more often, but they can be of poor lustre and are prone to being misshapen. They are however very cheap and can be seen up to 15 mm in diameter.

Whilst auction prices for fairly modern ‘ordinary’ jewellery can very modest indeed – and a small fraction of its retail replacement price – the market for ‘big name’ pieces with good style and quality is as strong as ever. Cartier, early Tiffany, Boucheron, Bulgari, Buccellati, and Lalique all sell strongly. From the previous century there is a strong collectors’ market for work by Castellani and Giuliano and anything with an interesting historical or royal background will generally fare well.

You may find that the values may have stayed the same, but it is always worth confirming this and as part of Doerr Valuations service we can easily check this for you.

So, with the price of gold, diamonds and jewellery continually changing, seeking professional advice and having your jewellery reviewed annually is extremely important.

Call us today to enquire about an appointment on 01883 722736 or email [email protected] or visit our website www.doerrvaluations.co.uk

Caring For Your Jewellery

Posted on October 9, 2020August 22, 2024 by Mary Waterfall

The way people approach jewellery care can be very diverse. Some people constantly wear their jewellery and don’t even think to remove their diamond rings when gardening or kneading dough to make bread. Other people take their rings off all the time – to wash their hands, do the washing up etc, often with husbands shouting in the background ‘Where have you left them this time!!’
In my opinion, jewellery should be worn and enjoyed. It should be a source of pleasure and not locked away in a box or safe all the time for fear it may get dirty or damaged. I often get asked about the best way to clean jewellery, so I have included some advice and other tips in this article in the hope that somebody finds it useful.

Image of commercial jewellery cleaning solution

Jewellery cleaning bath

I usually advise people to soak their jewellery in warm soapy water and then give it a scrub over with a soft toothbrush. You can buy jewellery cleaner at most jewellers which is just as effective. Some people swear by soaking it in gin! I have to say I have not tried that one and can think of better things to do with a glass of gin!

It’s amazing how much dirt is attracted to the surface of diamonds and gems. Earrings that are constantly worn can collect a build-up of ‘ear cheese’ to the reverse, which will also have an impact on the way light interacts with the gemstones and consequently with their brilliance and sparkle. In these incidences a cocktail stick is useful in addition to the soapy water. I often have to clean jewellery in order to be able to grade and assess the quality of the gemstones. My clients are usually delighted at the renewed sparkle it brings.

Ear Cheese!

Ultrasonic cleaners use sound waves to break down the dirt that accumulates on the surface of jewellery. However, it is not safe to put all gem stones in them. Softer, more delicate stones can be damaged by the heat and vibrations of an ultrasonic. These include emerald, opal, tanzanite, lapis, amber and other organic stones. Gemstones that have been treated to enhance their colour and clarity can also be damaged by an ultrasonic.
Pearls are very soft and delicate and may partially dissolve if cleaned with an ultrasonic. It is best to wipe pearls with a soft cloth and never use alcohol or chemicals on them. It is worth remembering to spray perfume before you put on your pearl necklace, rather than spraying the perfume on the pearls.

Do ‘the tap test’ at least once a month

Another important thing to check on a regular basis is that the gemstones are secure in their settings. I have recently heard quite a few horror stories of how significant sized diamonds have fallen out and been lost. I recommend people do ‘the tap test’ at least once a month. All you do is hold the piece of jewellery securely, close to your ear and lightly tap on it. If you can hear any rattling the stones are probably loose in their setting and in need of attention. It’s also a good practice to check the fittings on necklaces and bracelets are secure as it may have implications on your insurance cover if they are not. At Doerr Dallas Valuations these checks form part of our valuation procedure.

Enter the Dragon- The rise of Chinese buyers in the Art Market

Posted on October 9, 2020August 22, 2024 by Mark Longley

From my experience in the UK Art Market the rise of interest from Chinese buyers has been enormous. For the first part of my career I worked in the European works of art and Asian Art salerooms of Christie’s South Kensington during the late 1990’s. The supply of available material for sale meant that every other week we could sell Chinese and Japanese works of art and porcelain. Very few clients were from the Asian countries, with most being drawn from the London and European trade. There was no internet and most buyers were reliant on catalogues, being present to bid or telephone bidding to buy at auction.

The current market is completely different. The availability of the internet to view sales, the use of agents for buyers in China and the global nature of the Art business has completely changed the market, with Chinese buyers coming to London especially in November to view and buy at sales and via the trade during Asian Art week. Regional salerooms have as much power to sell high value works of Chinese Art, as Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams. Regional auctioneers, while retaining their business independence, have worked together with the common interest to service and support the rise in demand for services to Chinese buyers.

The most valuable and saleable objects that are sold in the trade and via auction are those that exhibit rarity and a fine provenance. Previous ownership from a distinguished family, history and proof of trade via prestigious dealers all confirm on an object, a proof of history and by virtue of these qualities value.

At Rosebery’s Fine art auctioneers in July 2020, a rare pair of Chinese porcelain wall or sedan chair vases, from the reign of the Emperor Qianlong were sold for £324,500 including buyer’s premium. They were consigned from a private collection in the UK, and decorated in what were termed as yangcai or “foreign colours” because of the pink famille rose grounds, which came to the knowledge of Chinese craftsmen from the influence of European missionaries and craftsmen who were in China. The Emperor Qianlong was a connoisseur of porcelain and ordered his craftsmen at the Imperial porcelain works in Jingdezhen to design a vase for a sedan chair for flowers. He is known to have written poetry, some of which appears on these vases, and those sold in the past.
The Imperial poem inscribed on the offered pair of vases, titled ‘The Hanging Bottle’, is documented in The Complete Library of the Four Treasures. The Qianlong emperor composed this poem in 1758, the 23rd year of his reign, to express his delight upon viewing a sedan vase filled with fresh flowers hanging in his sedan chair on the way to a hunting trip. There are 320 Qianlong wall vases recorded in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing and about 138 of them are inscribed with poems by the emperor. There are thirteen wall vases in varying glazes and forms on the wall of The Hall of Three Rarities, the emperor’s special study in the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Forbidden City.

The value achieved at auction was influenced by the colour of the decoration, the fact that they were a pair and that they had direct connection to the Emperor Qianlong. A Chinese agent eventually secured the winning bid.

A pair of Chinese porcelain wall or sedan chair vases, from the reign of the Emperor Qianlong were sold for £324,500 in July 2020. Image courtesy of Rosebery’s fine Art auctioneers.

Scholars have collected a wide range of different ceramic wares from China over the centuries. Of my favourite are the wares decorated in single colours or variations of this theme. One type of ware is called Jun ware and dates from the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Ceramics were produced in Junzhou Prefecture (today’s Yuzhou) in Henan province, found in the middle of China. Ceramic production lasted there from the Song (960-1279) to the Ming (1368-1644) dynasty and is usually typified a thick almost custard like pale purple glaze, with splashes of a deeper purple on the surface. These wares, while not greatly prized, were still revered in the Ming dynasty and continue to achieve high values at auction.

Chinese Jun bowl produced during the Song Dynasty. Image courtesy of Woolley and Wallis.

This Chinese Jun bowl was sold on the 21^st May 2014 for £26,000 and is typical of the wares produced during the Song Dynasty, but was attributed to a rival faction of the same period, the Jin. It is typical of the type of bowl made of the period with the thick pale lavender coloured glaze over laid with abstract cloud like large purple splashes.

Bill of sale Chinese Jun bowl dated 1946

Invoice for the Chinese Jun bowl dated 1946, from John Sparks, London. Images courtesy of Woolley and Wallis.

Of importance to the piece was the provenance from the dealership of John Spark’s Ltd, a prominent London dealer, whose receipt was sold with the piece, dated the 1^st January 1946 and the former owner, the late Dowager Viscountess Harcourt. Of equal importance is the fact that a similar form of bowl is found in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Made in China, a Brief Guide to the Meaning of Chinese Porcelain Marks

Posted on October 9, 2020October 21, 2024 by Mark Longley

As a valuer of Chinese and European ceramics, one of the main actions in assessing an item is to look at the base of an object as it can tell a thousand stories.

Mostly, this simple action will yield information, although on the rare occasion it does not, you might find the ashes of your client’s beloved relative at your feet, or indeed the corpse of a dead mouse. While I have not had the ashes of any deceased individual at my feet, passing meetings with mummified mice are a hazard of the job to which I can relate to in the hunt for an item’s history and authenticity.

The marks on Chinese porcelain wares are generally found on the base of the pot and are made up of four or six characters or a stylised seal mark, made of geometric designs that mirror the handwritten characters.

The marks will generally refer to an Emperor’s reign and confusingly are not a real indication of the age of the piece. If the age of the porcelain is considered to be of the same date as the mark in question, it is commonly described as being “of mark and period.” However, Chinese potters did mark porcelain with earlier reign marks to the date of the manufacture as a mark of respect to earlier wares and Emperors.

This can cause some confusion with dating Chinese porcelain!

Only expertise and experience can assess age, although sometimes an invasive test, such as a thermoluminescence test, might assist the valuer. Invasive tests are far from ideal as they do require a sample to be removed from a pot. Commonly, ancient Chinese terracotta tomb figures are sold on the marketplace with these tests and accompanying certificates. Oxford is currently one of the centres for issuing these certificates in the UK.

The translation of the marks one finds on Chinese porcelains are well documented in books including Gerald Davison’s excellent, “The Handbook of Marks on Chinese Ceramics”, which includes the main reign marks for the Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and other less commonly documented marks.

With practise, comparing and reading both written and seal marks on Chinese porcelain becomes easier, especially with the correct textbooks by your side. However, with a little more knowledge of written Chinese and the method of writing Chinese characters, this can be made easier and more satisfying to understand.

Each character would have been applied with a brush; the shapes made by varying the amount of pressure applied to the brush as the stroke is made. This is also relevant to forming Chinese characters in calligraphy. Each character would have been made by performing a varied number of strokes, from three to fourteen in the characters below. Understanding the order in which the strokes are written (generally left to right), their proportion and the formation of the character can help one to appreciate the character more precisely, and if one could understand the components of each character more fully, one would be able to consult a Chinese dictionary to find the meaning. Mostly marks used on Chinese porcelain appear as commonly used words in today’s modern Chinese language. For example, the character for year has not changed in hundreds of years, and can be found on Ming porcelain, and in an e mail today.

The first mark below is a Ming blue and white porcelain bowl that sold for $7,470,000 (£733,927) at Christie’s Hong Kong in May 2013 and below that, a pair of Yongzheng doucai conical Dragon bowls and covers, that sold for £212,000 at Christie’s London in November 2019.

The mark below shows from the top right down to left down, the characters for Da Ming Xuan, De Nian li, which translates as Great Ming Xuan De Year produced (in) or effectively, “this piece was produced in the reign of the Ming Emperor Xuan De.”

Ming porcelain mark. Image courtesy of Christie’s

The mark below shows from top right down and across to the left, the characters Da Qing Yong Zheng Nian li, with translates as Great Qing Yong Zheng Year produced (in), or effectively, “this piece was produced in the reign of the Qing Emperor Yong Zheng.”

Yongzheng porcelain mark . Image courtesy of Christie’s

New Rembrandt in Oxford

Posted on September 18, 2020August 22, 2024 by David Dallas

There is great excitement at my local museum, the Ashmolean in Oxford, as some of you may have read in the Guardian on Sunday 30th August. An van Camp, curator of Northern Europe Art at the museum has made a great discovery in the museum’s basement. She was concerned that a small oak panel of the head of a melancholic old man, bequeathed to the museum in 1951 as a Rembrandt, but subsequently rejected by the Rembrandt Research Project, as an old fake merited re-examination. She was quite right! She said “It is what Rembrandt does. He does these tiny head studies of old men with forlorn, melancholic, pensive looks. It is very typical of what Rembrandt does in Leiden around 1630”.

In 1630 Rembrandt shared a studio in Leiden with his childhood friend Jan Lievens and visitors to the studio said their work was interchangeable it was so similar.

Head of a Bearded Man Rembrandt

The painting was examined by Peter Klein, a leading dendrochronologist and he established that it was painted on a panel of Baltic oak from the same tree as the panel used by Rembrandt for his ‘Andromeda chained to the Rocks’ in the Mauritshuis Museum in the Hague and the panel used by Lievens for his ‘Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother’ in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden. Both paintings were executed around 1630, just as An van Camp had surmised about the Ashmolean panel. Rembrandt did not have pupils at this stage of his career, so it seems almost certain it is by him.

Dendrochronology has become a very exact science and works best on oak panels from Northern Europe. In Italy they painted on Poplar, Walnut and Lime and these soft woods are very hard to analyse. Dendrochronology works by taking a cross section of the growth rings of a tree. In wet years they are wide and in dry ones black and narrow. Each panel reads like a bar code and there are enough securely dated altarpieces and panel paintings that a huge database has arisen going back from the present day to almost the last ice age. This last bit did not involve altarpieces! I once had a painting by Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh, which had a remnant of bark attached. Usually panel makers cut off the soft green outer wood as it is so prone to woodworm or beetle attack. Dr Ian Tyres, who is an English Dendrochronologist could date the tree to within 6 months of its felling!

I saw the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition at the Ashmolean before lockdown and it is a ‘must-see show’; it reveals so much about the prodigious talents of this young miller’s son.
It re-opened on August 10th and now runs until November 1st. I urge you to go and see it, but remember these days you have to book a timed ticket in advance, to conform with social distancing regulations.

Patrick Heron (1920-1999)

Posted on September 7, 2020October 21, 2024 by Jonathan Horwich

Patrick Heron was one of the leading painters of his generation and one of my artist heroes. Like me, Heron also had artist heroes. His were chosen from the great French Post-Impressionist painters; namely Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse and the influence of each artist can be seen in many, if not all, of Heron’s paintings.

Henri Matisse, L’Atelier Rouge, Oil on canvas, 181 x 220 cms, Painted in 1911. Collection MOMA New York
Heron first saw this picture during the war in a basement gallery in London, it was for sale at £600 and was bought on behalf of the American collector Mrs Simon Guggenheim who later bequeathed it to MOMA. Heron did not have the money to buy it, however it made such an impression on him that he visited the gallery every day until it was finally sold.

Matisse, as the master of colour, was the inspiration and guide for Heron’s use of colour throughout his professional career. Heron knew Braque and describes a visit to his studio where he saw something completely new to him – an artist working on multiple pictures all at the same time. He speaks of watching while Braque frugally uses up any left-over paint by flitting from picture to picture to find the best location for every tiny dot of colour. Heron considered Bonnard an under-appreciated, semi-abstract painter artist and his mastery of the figure and its importance to a composition was a great influence on Heron’s art throughout the 1940’s and 50’s. Cezanne’s landscapes, when transferred to the scenery of Cornwall, also provided constant inspiration.

Some early drawings and watercolours by the young Patrick Heron aged from 3-8 years old

Heron himself was somewhat of a child prodigy. At the age of three he was making very competent landscape and figure drawings. By five he was almost up to Art School standard. His artistic and enlightened parents eased the burden on Heron’s school teachers by telling them not to worry too much about teaching him anything – he was going to be an artist anyway so he should be left to focus on that. At his secondary school near Harpenden he was indeed left to his own devices. His art teachers could no longer teach him anything and so he painted all day and so was largely self-taught.

Bedroom Mousehole, Cornwall. Signed and dated 1946, Oil on canvas, 76 x 63 cms
Sold in 2018 for 120,000 Euro.
Exhibited at Heron’s first one man show at the Redfern in 1947,

Cornwall was a great influence on Heron. Having first visited there as a child, the family later moved to Hertfordshire where they founded Cresta – a firm of silk printers where Heron helped out by designing scarves aged just 14. He finally returned to Cornwall due to the Second World War. A conscientious objector like his parents, Heron was allowed to go down to Cornwall to work with the potter Bernard Leach; an extraordinary piece of good fortune as Heron was not only able to hone his artistic skills by making pots, he also thrived under the watchful tutelage of Leach. He continued to paint throughout the war and afterwards in 1947 he had his first one-man show at The Redfern Gallery in London.

Blue Table with Window, Signed and dated 1954,
Oil on canvas, 102 x 127 cms
Sold in 2011 for £ 1,049,250 , current auction record price.

Heron was by now spending every summer in Cornwall and a clear transition from figurative painting to pure abstract began through the late 1940’s and 1950’s, always edging nearer to pure colour. This culminated in 1956/57 when he bought ‘Eagles Nest’, a cliff top house near St Ives, which he first saw as a child. Here in Cornwall he paints, ‘Interior Garden Window’ – his final major narrative painting, and then begins a new chapter with the pure abstract ‘Camellia Garden’. Everything thereafter is abstract and all about colour, light and shapes.

Patrick Heron Interior with garden window

Interior with Garden Window , circa 1955/1956,
Oil canvas, 121 x 152 cms. Collection Tate Britain
Heron’s last narrative painting before becoming a totally abstract painter

Watching Heron’s work ethic on film is exhausting. He is either out walking miles every day or painting long hours in Ben Nicholson’s old studio in St. Ives. He can be seen working on a large canvas, almost the size of a bedroom wall. It takes 13 hours straight to fill in the spaces using paint straight from the tube and he works without stopping, explaining that should he take a break then the paint will dry and a mark or ridge will appear where he left off and spoil the picture.

Camellia Garden, March. Signed and dated 1956, oil on canvas, 182 x 91 cms
Sold 2008 for £668,450
Herons first solely abstract painting following directly on from ‘Interior with Garden Window’

From my selection of images, I hope you can see the transition from semi-narrative to pure abstract and the energy and the warmth that comes through from Heron’s exceptional art.

Atmospheric Strata, Feb 1958. Oil on canvas, 122 x 56 cms. Sold 2013 £626,000
One of a relative rare series of very attractive and commercially successful ‘stripe’ paintings

Heron was successful right from his first show in 1947 and in 1985 he was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Barbican, which is probably the largest assembly of his works. His prices remained constant for many years until in 2006 they spiked. Prices continued to rise until 2009, when they settled back down a little, but remained strong for Masterworks from both pre and post 1957 eras.

Patrick Heron would have been 100 this year and I am sure that if he were still alive and able to paint, he would be making art as energetically now as he was throughout his amazing career.

The Lesquesne Silver Coffee Pot

Posted on September 7, 2020August 22, 2024 by James Lowe

At auction in 1971 estimate £20,000 – £25,000
At auction in 1983 estimate £150,000 – £175,000
At auction in 2013 estimate £3.5 – £4 million!!

I have had the pleasure of handling this wonderful piece of silver three times over the years but sadly never as the owner or vendor!
Paul de Lamerie is always lauded as being England’s finest silversmith, but as his name suggests he is from the continent. He was in fact Dutch, – Holland actual arriving in England as a 1 year old with his Hugenot family, escaping the religious persecution of the time.

In 1703 he was apprenticed to a fellow Hugenot smith, Pierre Plattel, and by 1713 had set up his own workshop. He very quickly became well known for quality workmanship combined with a sense of style, showing some continental influences which were easily incorporated in the emerging Rococo taste and style of decoration.

The pot was commissioned in 1738 by Sir John Lequesne to commemorate his wedding to Miss Mary Knight of Hampshire and both of their Coats of Arms are engraved to the side of the pot. Sir John was a fellow Hugenot of about the same age as Lamerie and had become a highly successful and wealthy trader in London in the 1720s and a prominent political figure. Contemporary records imply that Lesquesne was somewhat of a smooth operator, gaining his knighthood by being very solicitous and supportive of the newly arrived George II from Germany. Sadly though, the marriage was short lived as Sir John died shortly after in 1741.

English silver of the Queen Anne and George I periods is generally quite restrained: with plain conical, octagonal, or pear-shaped bodies and little in the way of applied or engraved decoration. This pot, although still having a pear-shaped body raised up from a single disc of silver, has bold spiral flutes chased into it and the three scroll legs are cast and join the body on panels which are cast and applied and depict putti clasping the branches of a coffee bush. The short stubby spout emerges from a finely cast mask of a youth emerging from a coffee branch cluster and the handle sockets are cast as snarling lions’ masks.

There is a short spout at the top of the body, rather than being a long slender spout from the bottom of the body. It was designed thus for a practical reason. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate all came to England from the mid 17th century and by the early 1700s coffee was being drunk rather like Turkish coffee these days; that is a very thick and heavy brew which had sugar added before being transferred to the pot, making it quite ‘gloopy’ to pour. This would have been a problem with a long slender curved spout.

The use of coffee bush branches as a decorative feature is, as far as we are aware, unique. Presumably, they were used to denote it being a coffee pot, but it has also been suggested that one of Lesquesne’s business ventures might well have been in the importing of coffee to England, so the design may have been a nod to this trade. The finial is cast with shells (very much a Rococo feature) and there are small panels of finely engraved trellis-like decoration in the Chinoiserie taste. There are also some very boldly chased floral clusters and swags. It may be somewhat of a riot of decorative styles incorporated in a pot that measures under 30 cms, but in my opinion it works marvellously well.

So why is this George II silver coffee pot worth hundreds of times more than any other pot of the same era? Firstly, it is the de Lamerie factor. He gained the Royal warrant from George II only three years after setting up on his own, and he was also a silversmith favoured by members of the Houses of Parliament. Most of his production was on a commissioned basis from wealthy patrons, most had coats of arms, and a lot of contemporary records survive.

But despite his popularity and great success over his 30 or so year career, his production was surprisingly limited. Even the smallest of his products was superior in quality and style than most of his contemporaries and he never bought in stock from other smiths – a practice quite common where a smith would buy bits from a fellow smith before hallmarking and marking it with his own maker’s mark. The legally enforceable Hallmarking Act, which has been in operation for 750 years or so, has worked well and as far as I’m aware there are no de Lamerie fakes around, and unlike the picture world you don’t find silver with the ‘school of Lamerie’ or ‘in the manner of Lamerie’ labels.

You would have thought that a silver coffee pot made for use over 250 years ago would show some signs of wear, but this pot is as crisp and sharp as when it left the factory. I am therefore sure that from day one it was a piece of silver that commanded respect and reverence and may have spent much of its life as a showpiece. Even the fruitwood handle looks to be original.
Secondly, is the design factor of the pot. It is the first recorded piece of English silver that carries features from the French Regency style that was prevalent in the early 1720s in Europe. This trend developed into the full-blooded Rococo period of the mid-century which influenced the decorative features of furniture and paintings for several decades.

Thirdly, it is a seminal work of art in my opinion and a wonderful example of the silversmiths’ skills. Works of art do not have to be painted on canvas!!

And finally, it is totally unique. Thankfully, because if there were another one around I couldn’t even afford the knob on the top!

Bridget Riley, CH, CBE. Born 1931

Posted on August 25, 2020August 22, 2024 by Jonathan Horwich

Bridget Riley, Bassacs, ’94 (section), signed and dated 94, gouache on paper, 66 x 87 cms. Sold Nov 2019, £250,000

It is impossible not to be moved both spiritually and physically while standing in front of a major work by Bridget Riley. She belongs to a painting movement known as ‘Op Art’.

Bridget Riley – Shift, 1963. Oil on canvas, 75 x 75 cms. Sold twice recently in London, June 2016, £1,426,500 and then February 2020, £2,715,000

Not to be confused with Pop Art, Op Art is short for Optical Art, a style of visual art that uses optical illusions and effects with the aim of destabilising the viewer. The viewer gets the impression of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibrating patterns or of swelling and warping. The movement emerges in the 1960’s and includes other major International artists such as Victor Vasarely and Jesus Rafael Soto.

Bridget Riley – Primitive Blaze, emulsion on board, 1963, 94 x 94 cms.
Sold June 2007 for £826,400

Just try standing directly in front of a Riley work, especially a large 60’s black and white piece. It truly is a unique experience. After a few seconds you begin to feel woozy, then you begin to feel like you are being pulled into the picture itself and so you begin to move involuntarily and to sway gently to gain access, and then your eyes go fuzzy. This effect all comes from the artist’s specific design and her precise aim is to make this happen to you.

Bridget Riley – Chant 2, 1967, Emulsion on canvas, 231 x 231 cms. Sold July 2008, £2,561,250

Bridget Riley uses a studio system to make her pieces; she makes the original design and then her super skilled team produce the finished pictures under her direct supervision throughout. Her distinctive way of working owes little to other artists and her skill, knowledge and experience now spans over 50 years as a working artist. By using a studio method with teams of people who will carry out her ideas and put them into practice means she is freed up to constantly have new ideas and to refresh her art and output.

Bridget Riley – Study fo Point Movement, signed, gouache on card, 68 x 73 cms. Sold Nov 2017, £162,000

I love the sheer precision of her work and also the variety, and I marvel at how she manages to always make it undoubtedly recognisable as the work of Bridget Riley. The most desirable and expensive pieces are the black-and-white works which span the early 60’s from 1961-1964. These culminate in the 1965 exhibition ‘ The Responsive Eye’ held at MOMA New York, when ‘Current’ 1964, by Riley was selected for the front cover of the catalogue.

Bridget Riley – October 5, Revision of August 11, signed and dated 98, gouache on paper, 85 x 56 cms. Sold March 2020, £125,000

Colour works begin to emerge from 1967 onwards and are inspired by places Riley knows or has visited. For example, the ‘Ka’ and ‘Ra’ series relate to her visits to Egypt and evoke the colours, shapes and light in Egypt. The series, ‘Les Bassacs’ is inspired and named after the village of the same name in Provence, near to where Riley has her studio.

Bridget Riley, Bassacs, ’94 (section), signed and dated 94, gouache on paper, 66 x 87 cms. Sold Nov 2019, £250,000

For collectors there is much to choose from; an easy and affordable starting point being the many limited-edition prints, followed by works on paper and then paintings. The big money has until recently been for the 60’s black and white works only which inevitably are now very rare, so in recent years large scale colour works from the 70’s and 80’s and later have increased in price significantly.

Bridget Riley – Serpentine Study, 1999, gouache on paper, 39 x 38 cms
Sold Oct 2019, £50,000

For me, the genius of Bridget Riley is that her work never dates and is always fresh and vibrant in its intensity and vision.

Bridget Riley – Six Circles, gouache, 1970, 79 x 45 cms. Sold June 2018, £125,000

At auction in 1971 estimate £20,000 – £25,000 At auction in 1983 estimate £150,000 – £175,000 At auction in 2013 estimate £3.5 – £4 million!!

At auction in 1971 estimate £20,000 – £25,000
At auction in 1983 estimate £150,000 – £175,000
At auction in 2013 estimate £3.5 – £4 million!!