Wedgwood

Paperweights from makers such as Caithness, Mdina, Selkirk, Wedgwood and Whitefriars go under the hammer at auctioneers Moore Allen & Innocent in Cirencester on August 7.

A series of deals to safeguard the future of the Wedgwood Collection and ensure it will continue to be displayed in the Potteries have now been completed.

It has taken just over a month for the Art Fund’s £2.74m appeal to save the Wedgwood Collection to reach its target. It will now be gifted to the V&A but will stay in situ at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, near Stoke.

Soon after ATG reported that the public had contributed £700,000 in a matter of days to help the final push to save the Wedgwood archive, the news came through that close to £2m had been raised. Some £1.3m was donated in just four days.

There are promising signs for the future of the Wedgwood Museum thanks to planning approval given to redevelop the site where it is based near Stoke-on-Trent.

This 12in (30cm) diameter Wedgwood Queen’s Ware ‘Boat Race’ bowl, designed by Eric Ravilious, appeared at a recent sale held by Robertson’s of Kinbuck, near Dunblane.

The highlight of the recent Decorative Art and Design sale conducted by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet was this Wedgwood Fairyland lustre malfrey pot and cover designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881-1945).

Negotiations on a new rescue package have raised hopes of saving the Wedgwood Museum collection. Those involved expect to be able to unveil an agreement within the next few months.

SPEEDY government intervention is essential to save the Wedgwood Museum’s collection, descendants of Josiah Wedgwood say.

A WHITE knight has stepped forward with an offer to rescue the Wedgwood Museum collection after a High Court judgment ruled it should be sold off to pay pension scheme creditors.

High Court judge to decide if 10,000-piece holding must be sold off

AN extraordinary legal loophole threatens to decimate the unique collection of the award-winning Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent.

THE so-called Frog Service made by Wedgwood for Catherine the Great was one of the most prestigious creations by the Staffordshire entrepreneur and one that helped forge his international reputation.

When an impressive Wedgwood Fairyland lustre vase featured on the latest edition of The Antiques Roadshow, valuer Stephen Moore (of Anderson & Garland, Newcastle) wanted to suggest it could bring £10,000-15,000.

A funding package worth £7m has been agreed allowing construction to begin on a new Wedgwood Museum in the heart of the Potteries at the company’s Barlaston headquarters.

THE highlight of a 15-piece collection of Wedgwood ceramics offered for sale by Kidson-Trigg (15% buyer’s premium) of Highworth on May 26-27 was a pair of Wedgwood & Bentley black basalt oil lamps (one shown top right) that would have represented the height of fashion c.1775.

MOST of us are familiar with the designs Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Keith Murray produced for Wedgwood, but how many have heard of Norman Makinson?

Following the £620 sale of three Wedgwood Ravilious Coronation mugs in November, Tom Delaney of Mallams in Cheltenham recalled seeing a similar mug in a local house – this much rarer example transfer printed with a brick kiln together with a silhouette portrait of Stoke-on-Trent’s most famous son and the inscription Josiah Wedgwood Barlaston 1940 Etruria 1730.

USA: Wedgwood wares formed a significant slice of Skinner’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 890-lot auction of English and Continental furniture and decorations on January 19. Of the 230-odd lots of ceramics that featured in the sale, two-thirds comprised works from that factory.