A Successful Day At Auction & A Connection To An Important Welsh Ceramics Collection

Two auction attendees contemplate their bidding strategy
Photo: Chronica Domus

It has been an age since I was motivated enough to haul my caboose out of the house on a weekend morning to attend a live auction. One bright and sunny day last month, my husband and I did just that, taking our ringside seats at the hottest event in town.  Fellow ceramics collectors, clutch your paddles tight.  I am about to show you what it was that had me so revved up. 

While some attending the sale anticipated successful bids on the Picassos, Chagalls, or Dalis on offer, it was the numerous lots of English ceramics of the late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth century that lured me in like a fish to water.  Now, let me preface my scribblings by stating that in my part of the world, stumbling across a piece of early porcelain or creamware on my travels is a rare thing indeed.  These utilitarian (and fragile) articles were, after all, manufactured in potteries located on the other side of the world, on a small island over two centuries ago.  Bearing all that in mind, you can well imagine my delight at being confronted by the glorious vision captured in the photograph below:

A display case chock-full of early Wedgwood and Spode creamware table articles
spells danger for this particular addict collector
Photo: Chronica Domus

And, for admirers of early drabware ceramics, feast your eyes on this:

No, this is not a decorative arts museum's exhibit but the contents of a
single lot for sale at auction

Photo: Chronica Domus

Or, how about some neoclassically decorated English porcelain?  There was plenty of that to go around too.

Yes, please!

Photo: Chronica Domus

A Coalport tea service in a pretty orange and gilt pattern, circa 1820
Photo: Chronica Domus

After a brief confab with my husband, it was settled.  One of the creamware lots would - fingers crossed - be going home with us.  Spotting at least one other interested party circling the display cases and pacing between the creamware and the silver lots, we might be up against competition.

The lot that piqued our interest happened to be the final one of the early ceramics.  First under the auctioneer's gavel was the drabware, sold to an Internet bidder at, astonishingly, less than the bottom end of estimate.  Next, the first of two lots of Spode Greek pattern.  That too sold at a very reasonable hammer price. The creamware was next ...

Sold! ... Nine pieces of Wedgwood's Flute and Wreath pattern

Photo: Chronica Domus

Sold!... Wedgwood's Etruscan Pattern 42 in red and black and
Pattern 93 in yellow and black enamel, circa 1785 - 1790

Photo: Chronica Domus

Sold!... Five pieces (two out of range of this photograph) of Wedgwood's Pattern 94
Photo: Chronica Domus

Sold!... A large covered dish in brown and yellow enamel and an integral sauce tureen

Photo: Chronica Domus

Bidding was fast and furious and after several of the English porcelain lots came and went, it was time to take my paddle to hand and steel myself for the battle ahead. It helps, of course, to have the support of one's dear husband who is not such a bag of nerves when it comes to these matters. He usually wields the paddle but on this occasion, I found the strength to raise my own. As luck would have it, the experience was not at all intimidating. It did help that I was the only interested bidder. Sold! to the lady who almost fainted from the rush of excitement when the gavel finally dropped. We were going home with not one but two shelves full of delicious creamware plates and serving dishes (seen in the second top photograph of this post).

The winning lot!

Photo: Chronica Domus

Accompanying the stack of ten plates is a large shapely serving dish in the same hand-painted geometric pattern.  

It is hard to believe that this pristine Wedgwood serving dish is over 200 years old

Photo: Chronica Domus

A pair of Spode creamware supper dishes painted in a similar orange and black

enamel to the Wedgwood pieces are also included in the lot

Photo: Chronica Domus

The story of the winning ceramics doesn't quite end here.  A further serving dish included in the lot yielded a clue as to the previous owner.  It is always an exciting prospect to ponder where such humble household articles began their life, how they were used, and who cared for them along the way.  

Aha! A clue to where these dishes once lurked

Photo: Chronica Domus

Who might Grant-Davidson be I wonder?

Photo: Chronica Domus

A collector's label affixed to the underside of the dish prompted a little Internet sleuthing which soon revealed the identify of Grant-Davidson as the author of the following book:

Source

Yes, that's right, my new old creamware dishes once formed part of the private collection of internationally recognized ceramics expert Mr. Wallace James Grant-Davidson.  

Mr. Wallace James Grant-Davidson proudly showing off part of his ceramics collection

Source

Mr. Grant-Davidson, a historian and authority on Welsh pottery, was also an extraordinary lifetime collector of eighteenth and nineteenth century British porcelain and ceramics.  Following his death in 1999, Sotheby's was charged with dispensing the collection which included pieces of Whieldon, redware, stoneware, pratt-type wares, delftware, Staffordshire and Sunderland lustreware as well as creamware.  The collection was broken up into 270 lots that raised a sum of £110,975.

It is a rare privilege indeed to be privy to information on the provenance of newly acquired items at auction beyond, of course, what the seller provides the auction house.  This is why I was so pleased to discover the collection label attached to the underside of one of my plates.  The label led me to some fascinating information released by Sotheby's in the run up to the sale.  It identifies exactly where these dishes last resided during their two-hundred year history:

"The whole house was decorated with the china", Mrs. Margaret Grant-Davidson said; "every room had pieces on the walls, it covered the walls in the study, the bedroom, the dining room and even up the stairs!  My husband was a true collector, he brought what he liked.  I was married to him for more than 60 years and he was so meticulous and kept everything.  It is taking me a long time to sort things out and I am still finding things that I never knew we had.  I have kept many items as the house would be bare otherwise". 

It is pleasing to imagine that a humble Welsh house in Swansea was once home to such an extraordinary and well-loved collection of ceramics.  And now, here in my own humble abode, half way across the world, Mr. Grant-Davidson's dishes have somehow found their way to me.  I wonder where they'll end up next?  Until that day dawns, I look forward to using and enjoying my creamware, and setting it atop my period appropriate English mahogany dining table, alongside period glassware and silver.  Who knows, perhaps table and plate might have already met at a long-past luncheon or dinner party. 

Now, if you'll please excuse me, I'm off to hatch a plan for my creamware's coming out party ...