Knowledgeable, cultured and fabulously wealthy, Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild was a collector of many styles, from masterpieces of antiquity, to scandalous Meissen monkeys, her legacy … the stunning Rothschild museum.
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Sometimes referred to as a ‘Pioneer for the Modern Movement’, Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a talented architect, artist and interior designer. His unique, innovative style has achieved record prices at auction, ensuring Mackintosh worldwide acclaim as one of the most celebrated designers of the twentieth century.
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The earliest known woman silversmith in England was Agas Harding, whose mark was entered in 1513. Silversmithing in the 18th century was very much a family business, everyone shared in the work, far more women were involved than records show, as few were formally apprenticed …
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The Golden Age of the Barber stretched from the 1880s to the 1940s, a period in which the all-male barber shop rivaled the saloon for popularity. For many men, visiting the barber was a weekly ritual – for some it was a daily habit. And why not? At that time the average barbershop was a very classy joint.
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From a wool-broker’s manager to a lauded silversmith, Gilbert Leigh Marks trod a less common path to glory.
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It was once the ultimate mark of sophistication for collectors of western porcelain to have Chinese export porcelain with the same exceptional level of quality as Chinese Imperial porcelain, but in the western style.
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It’s good to be emperor. Just ask Napoleon III, who, having fallen in love with the appearance of shagreen, decided to cover his bedroom wall to wall in green shagreen and hang the massive expense.
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No modernist design style is as much the epitome of luxury and decadence as Art Deco, evoking the glamorous era of the jazz age and the emergence of the silver screen in 1930s Hollywood.
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Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne formed one of the most innovative and dynamic duos in 20th century art. Known since the 1960s as ‘Les Lalanne’, they took inspiration from the natural world, charming celebrities and surrealists alike and their creations now make millions of dollars at auction.
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One of the most prolific of the Australian decorative wood carvers was Robert Wilhelm Prenzel (1866-1941), who migrated to Melbourne from Prussia in November 1888. Throughout the Federation period and into the 1930s, Prenzel created a harmonious blend of images of native flora and fauna with the international Art Nouveau style.
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The structure that became Traquair House already existed in 1107, Alexander I of Scotland signed a royal charter there, establishing a precedent that saw the property used by a long line of Scottish kings as a base. It’s believed to be the oldest contInually occupIed house In the whole of Scotland,
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Essex crystal was a Victorian trend that today can seem a little bit kitsch, but in its time was hugely popular.
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It seems rarely a week goes by without a report of a new auction record for an oriental antique, all the better if it was found in the attic or snapped up at a garage sale and then sold for a fortune. But observers will have noticed that these success stories have been almost universally Chinese, even though the Japanese also produced pieces of equally outstanding quality and beauty.
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Born on May 12, 1670 in Dresden, Frederick Augustus II rose to power through a combination of political astuteness and military prowess. Elector of Saxony and king of Poland, he was a formidable ruler with a passion for the arts, power and pleasure.
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Long before the Packers, Murdochs and Fairfaxes were considered Australian royalty, the illegitimate son of a highway robber, a bankrupt politician and a farmer founded three of Australia’s greatest colonial dynasties.
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In 1697, intrepid traveller Celia Fiennes described Newby Hall as ‘the finest house I saw in Yorkshire’. Judith Dunn takes a tour of that house, now wonderfully restored.
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Despite being closed off for much of modern history, Japan’s artistic impact on the west in the late 19th century was explosive. We look at the intrigue behind some masterworks of Meiji.
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First published early this year in Sweden, the book Please Be Seated: Historic Chairs and the Tales They Tell by Gun Bjerkander Handberg has been so well received it’s already been translated into English. We’ve chosen to present the stories of three of the chairs from the group of short stories.
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L.J. (Lewis Jarvis) Harvey (1871-1949) teacher, sculptor, wood-carver, potter, designer and advocate was the principal figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Queensland in the first half of the twentieth century. Harvey embedded himself in the artistic milieu of Brisbane for some fifty years; Glenn R Cooke showcases an exhibition dedicated to one of Australia’s most influential artisans.
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The concept of having a special dress for your wedding day is fairly recent. For centuries the bride simply wore her finest dress to the ceremony, even if that dress was black or patterned. Blue was particularly popular because it represented purity. But when Queen Victoria married her prince in 1840, she initiated a tradition that’s still going strong 177 years later.
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In the dynastic Chinese culture with Confucian values at its core, the celebration of sensuality – while not prominent on its moralistic and sober face – was a veneer at odds with the prevailing Western image of decorous Chinese society.
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In the peacock world, pretty equals male. Even though his tail makes up 60% of his body lengthy and prevents him from flying far to escape predators, peacock evolution is focused on being the male with the most spectacular tail and that’s because he who has the biggest, flashiest, quivering tail gets the girls.
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The so-called ‘Cliffies’ believe Clarice was a better designer than Susie… others would say Clarice’s designs were simply marketed better. But in many ways these two leading ladies were both trailblazers of the same era and their careers have many similarities.
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From the man who claimed he could create gold, to a life-sized porcelain menagerie for a king obsessed – the magic of Meissen porcelain has enthralled for centuries.
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Paul Storr needs little introduction. He was the most prominent silversmith of the Regency period, producing many important pieces that were commissioned by some of the most powerful people of his time. “His use of innovative technology is breathtaking; it was the Microsoft of its day,” says silver scholar and author Christopher Hartop.
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At the time of the introduction of the dressing case at the end of the 18th century, it was perfectly normal for wealthy travellers to have whole banks of suitcases accompanying them on even modest trips. The more luxurious the luggage, the more important the traveller, and this extended to the dressing case which gradually became more opulent in order to better display their owners’ wealth.
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When people think of Wedgwood, more often than not they think of the blue and white porcelain, but this is, in fact, just the tip of the iceberg: almost every type of ceramic body has been produced at the Wedgwood factory since 1759, along with an inexhaustible range of decoration.
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Judith Dunn traces the history of the vibrant and intricately designed tiles, now a byword for Portuguese art, merging Islamic influences with European aesthetics.
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At the turn of the 20th century, French-born jewellery artist René Lalique (1860-1945) was arguably at the peak of his popularity. His jewellery designs had won him both fame and awards and his groundbreaking use of non-precious materials was almost universally admired. Which makes it all the more remarkable that he chose that exact time to switch to the medium of glass.
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Henry VIII’s passion for jewellery boxes was matched only by his passion for women. Often he combined the two, with royal craftsmen focusing on every detail to capture the king’s desires, the box and its jewellery to be presented to whomever he had chosen to woo. The jewellery box is far more than a simple box of treasures.
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Despite being closed off for much of modern history, Japan’s artistic impact on the west in the late 19th century was explosive. We look at the intrigue behind some masterworks of Meiji – part two.
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Queen Victoria was famously fascinated in later life by her dominions in India, then covering what are now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In her seventies she even learned Hindustani and had Durbar Hall built at Osborne House in 1890. We take a tour of a spectacular show of royal items from the sub-continent held at Buckingham Palace.
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She was one of Britain’s most iconic female sculptors and recent sales of her work have seen values climb up to 8000%. In her life and her work, Elisabeth Frink demonstrated not only a deep understanding of the existential angst provoked by WWII but also a life-affirming belief in the powerful bond between mankind and the animal kingdom.
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The French jewellery firm of Boivin, founded in Paris during the 1890s by René Boivin and known for the impeccable craftsmanship of its pieces, became a trailblazer of modern and sculptural jewellery design in the 1930s and ’40s when it was influenced by four remarkable women.
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George Nelson is credited as being instrumental in bringing European modernism to the United States of America, but Australia’s connections to the European modern movement also emerged in the pre- and post-WWII period.
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When Siegfried Bing (also known as Samuel) opened his shop, La Maison De L’Art Nouveau in Paris in 1895, he could never have envisioned the enormous impact it would have in the world of fine arts. Or could he? Delving into the secret world of the so-called ‘father of art nouveau’…
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Our Mid Century Modern section puts the spotlight on some collecting trends including the psychedelic charm of Carlton Ware, Harry Winston jewels, Novo Rumo from Brazil, Higginsware, McLaren Pottery and the Tretchikoff legend as well as bite-sized snippets from the Mid Century market.
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Art Nouveau represented a break from creative tradition that was exotic, extravagant and modern. The Art Nouveau woman was not the quiet, shy, unassuming figure of her Victorian predecessor: she exuded confidence, with wild flowing hair, a flirtatious smile and provocatively closed eyes.
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Coveted by collectors for hundreds of years, Chinese porcelain is admired for its exceptional beauty and quality.
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Bugatti is not a name that most associate with art, yet the works of Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916), who was one of the most remarkable sculptors of the early 20th century, are displayed in many of the world’s major museums.
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Everyone loves a chocolate egg at Easter, but in the case of the Russian royal family the concept of Easter egg giving was taken to extremes.
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In our Autumn 2023 issue, we discovered the factors that combined to sink what many engineers believe is still the strongest ocean-going liner ever built. Even after it became obvious there was no way to save the Titanic, there was still a three-hour window between the collision and total immersion. So why did so many of her passengers and crew die?
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In October 2022, the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection achieved a total in excess of US$150m, making it one of the top three collections of fine and decorative arts ever sold at Christie’s. Across two weeks and ten auctions, more than 1500 lots were sold with a 100% success rate.
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In the wake of the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Ivor Hughes takes a look at the royal memento market and its prospects.
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The Fabergé egg is probably the most famous form of enamelling familiar to collectors, although it’s odds-on you have somewhat less artistic enamelling in your kitchen or bathroom. But the world of enamels is far wider than Fabergé and the kitchen sink…
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Many designers are fashionable and some reach the peak of their profession, but only a handful are so innovative that their work both defines a period and shapes that which follows.
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Troika Pottery was the dream of three men who wanted to create pottery that was all about art and design, with little regard for function. They were surprisingly successful.
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The invention of fine creamware and the development of transfer-printing on glazed clay in the 1750s coincided with the great age of British printed satire, leading to radical politics, murders and royal scandals appearing on mugs, jugs and other everyday ceramics.
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Conceived and developed in the beautiful environs of its namesake town in Ireland’s county Fermanagh, the translucent porcelain of the Belleek pottery is hailed as the thinnest and most delicate in the world.
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Scotland’s unique relationship with silver started during the occupation by the Romans and continued through medieval times. It remains an important ingredient in folk and ceremonial items.
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The ancient craft of intarsia – the making of decorative and pictorial mosaics by the inlay of precious and exotic material into or onto a groundwork of solid wood – was the inspiration for the development of marquetry.
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He was a key figure in the 18th century Grecian revival and his high quality wares featured ‘a constant supply of every kind of fashionable Furniture,’ but unless you’re a furniture specialist you probably haven’t heard of George Oakley.
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