Dear Friends,
We are pleased to bring to your attention extra exciting lots that have arrived since our previous email.
Chinese pieces including a very decorative bottle vase with Buddhist lions in famille verte enamels, a small but finely worked silver bowl pierced with auspicious dragons, and a charming pair of 18th century porcelain dishes painted in underglaze blue and copper red with fruit in early Ming style, which, although not quite of Imperial quality, bear the desirable seal marks of the Qianlong emperor and are of his period (1735-1796).
Collection of 18th century English glass, including drinking glasses, some with unusual stems, and an important armorial marriage beaker of large size, engraved for Joseph Gulston and Suzanna Woodham who married on the 5th April 1787. Sadly, the marriage was very short-lived, although passionate, as Joseph Gulston led a wild existence, being overfond of drink; he spent some months in the Parisian prison of La Force for debt, and died in 1790 aged just 22. His wife lived until 1806. The beaker descended in the family until it formed part of Sotheby’s sale of the contents of Derwydd Mansion in Carmarthenshire on the 15th September 1998, when it was bought by a relative of our vendor.
A fine 19th century Bowie knife, made in Sheffield at their Globe Works by J Walter & Co for export to America, the etched blade inscribed ‘California Knife’ and with its original scabbard.
An important early milestone in the history of our ‘connected’ age in the form of an example of Ericsson’s ‘Skeletal’ telephone – the first production telephone with a handset – which was first produced in 1890; our example dating to circa 1910.
