Yesterday, at the rather marvellous Woolley & Wallis salerooms in Wiltshire, a new world record was paid for a piece of Mdina at auction. Lot 169, the Mdina ‘Crizzle Stone’ shown below, fetched a staggering £950 – over £1,100 including buyer’s premium. Whilst this isn’t quite as much as the £1,564 paid for a large […]
Wandering around glass fairs, as is my want, reveals the diversity of the exciting world of contemporary glass. Whilst glassmaking is a costly and time-consuming activity, often making many pieces expensive, there can be a few affordable surprises. One of them is the work of recent glass graduate Sarah Cable. The piece below is typical […]
Thanks to Els van Petersen for drawing my attention to a new contemporary art installation or exhibit (depending on your perspective) by Marieke van Diemen at the innovative Boijmans van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.The picture says it all – some 520 West German ceramic vases on display as part of a wider exhibition […]
Building up a knowledge of shapes and colours can really reap rewards. It’s why I have my book collection split between two places, within easy reach of either my sofa or my bed. Nothing beats leafing through a book as you relax to firmly imprint images, makers and designers on your brain. Repeated viewing really […]
It’s often amazing what crops up on eBay.de. Earlier this month I found a rather superb Ruscha bull, in the desirable ‘Vulcano’ glaze. According to Petra & Patrick Folkersma of Outernational, Ruscha made a small number of animals in the 1960s, including an elephant which was the earliest example made. The bull was made in […]
For those of you who treat buying antiques and collectables somewhat like the stock market, here’s something you will be interested in. Today, a large Mdina ‘Fish’ vase designed by Michael Harris, and also signed by him, sold for a staggering £1,564 on eBay.de! A couple of years ago, this would have probably fetched around […]
I’ve just got back from a working and (thankfully, latterly) pleasure weekend in Berlin. The results of my Fat Lava this time hunt were rather surprising! I found one design shop in trendy Mitte where they actually had a selection of Fat Lava on display in their vintage design section. This is the first time […]
New year’s resolutions, and all that, have finally pushed me to scan and post a couple of press articles from 2006 that may interest you. They just go to show how both West German ceramics and Mdina and Isle of Wight Studio Glass are spreading, and generally becoming more notable and noteworthy subjects. Some national […]
Firstly, happy new year to one and all. The first new news of the year is that, at last, Dr Horst Makus’ landmark publication ‘Keramik der 50er Jahre’ (Ceramics of the 1950s) has been re-released. It was last published in 1998 and has become increasingly impossible to find over the last 9 years. My gap-filling […]
2025 is nearly over and it’s time to look forward to a relaxing break and then the coming year ahead. But right now, it’s time for a much-needed break, so our office will be closed from Thursday 18th December until Tuesday 6th January inclusive. Any and all enquiries or sales received between those dates will […]
Hot on the heels of the Maltese-based ‘Mdina Collectors Club’, comes an even more exciting venture out of Toronto in Canada. A number of dedicated Fat Lava enthusiasts have just founded the ‘Fat Lava Collectors’ Club’, in association with the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. The small but perfectly formed group held their first meeting last […]
I’m sure many of you will have seen what you think is a West German ceramic, which then turns out to be Austrian – with the word AUSTRIA moulded on the base. I have been keeping my eye on these to try and work out who made them. Earlier this week I bought a nice […]