Collectors' Focus
Ireland’s decorative arts have always had a devoted following among collectors but increasingly you need ‘the luck of the Irish’ to find the best, writes .
Isabel Andrews, Monday, 25th August 2008
The collecting of ceramics is polarised between the well-known Belleek pottery (the best of which is pre-1890) and 18th-century Irish delftware and pearlware. Delft is the most common early Irish ceramic. Jonathan Horne, the London-based specialist dealer in early ceramics, explains, ‘Demand is for the rarest, marked objects and collected by half-a-dozen avid collectors, who are spread across the world.’ The finest delft was produced for society’s elite at Dublin’s World’s End Pottery by Henry Delamain, today regarded as the most influential figure in Irish ceramics (Fig. 4). In 2000 Christie’s, London, sold a delft blue-and-white basket by Delamain’s factory, made around 1755, that, despite a chip and flaking glaze, soared above its top-end estimate of £3,000 to reach £9,988.
During the 1960s large quantities of delft left Ireland for sale in London, which remains the most likely source of the finest delft, but even here it is increasingly rare. ‘In 1968 when I began dealing there were a dozen shops in London carrying Irish ceramics, now we are the only one’, says Horne. ‘It used to be that some 12,000 lots a year would come up at auction but an average now is around 300.’ Horne, who staged a loan exhibition of Irish delft in 2000, comments, ‘Developing new collectors is a dripping tap. People need to be shown and with explanation.’
Much less is known about the pottery of the Irish arts and crafts movement and consequently the market is little explored, but one figure dominates: the Dublin potter Frederick Vodrey, whose influences range from art nouveau to the Celtic revival. According to Jane Beattie, ‘A good example of a pot, six to eight inches high, in an appealing red or green colour glaze goes for €1,000-€1,500.’
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