Dear Wedgwood Enthusiast,
All of us at Alexis Antiques and CollegePlates.com wish each and every one of our wonderful clients and correspondents a very happy holiday season. Hopefully the miserable icy weather we had here in St. Louis didn’t hit where you are!!! Enjoy the holidays and let us know if we can help make yours any merrier!
We will be shipping for Christmas through 12/22 should you wish to use overnight delivery - Remember Christmas is on Monday this year, one less shipping day for those last minute shoppers!
We have Gift Certificates for those hard-to-buy-for collectors - they may be sent in hard copy format or via email!
HINTS OF THINGS COMING AND GOING ON
NEW & FEATURED ITEMS on the FRONT PAGE of our website is the place to read all about our newest acquisitions and more descriptive information on many items. The most recent 25 items added to inventory will appear in the left hand column. If we add two items with the same name at one time only one will show, so be sure to check that category to see all its items. And don’t forget to browse our great selection of LINKS to many websites of interest to Wedgwood collectors! Read our Featured Items closely, we usually have a special or two hidden in those descriptive frames.
As always we have added new and different merchandise. We still have some Christmas-specific items like ornaments, a gorgeous new one this year too, and some other fun things for the holiday season. We’ve added caneware, college plates, and more “repair parts” to include two very rare filter liners. Be sure to check our newest 25 items, then go to Browse Inventory to see what else is new. In Featured Items check out the 2007 CALENDAR TILE CALENDAR published by our long-time contact Mark Tanner; and, for that Peter Rabbit fan on Santa’s list, this year’s new book – and don’t forget the new movie all about Beatrix Potter coming soon to a theatre near you!
If you will be in England between now and 28 January, don’t miss the Wedgwood Exhibition at Nottingham Castle celebrating the important Felix Joseph Wedgwood collection. There is a catalog for the exhibit available for 15GBP plus shipping - send an email to joh@ncmg.org.uk for more information.
Michael Stawser is soliciting Majolica and oyster plates for his upcoming March 30 and 31 auction. That catalog is always well-illustrated and a good resource for collectors. Contact Majolica Auctions at www.majolicaauctions.com.
The 52nd Wedgwood International Seminar will take place May 23 –25, 2007 at the Tremont Plaza Hotel, Baltimore, MD. It is NOT too early to pay your WIS dues or join and make plans now for Wedgwood galore in one of America’s most beautiful and historic cities. See LINKS on our website for the WIS website.
WEDGWOOD in the NEWS
We’ve been a tad busy with a volunteer job this year which entails much travel, so our newsletters have not been regular. Unfortunately that means that some of our news is rather stale. But for those of you who subscribe to and keep your arts and home magazines, here are a few spottings you might enjoy hunting down:
Martha Stewart didn’t leave Black Basalt out of her Halloween designs, see the fabulous October issue of Martha Stewart Living for beautiful displays of black basalt and Patrician Queen’s Ware! The cover of the magazine is always enticing, the Wedgwood spottings are usually many!
The November issue sports photos of colorful Chrysanthemum pattern plates and an excellent “how to” guide for designing and hanging plate and platter arrangements. For those of you who decorate with your Wedgwood, check out the fabulous green kitchen in the September 06 MSL issue – exquisite displays of green glaze ware!
So okay, we went ahead to the Christmas issue of Martha Stewart Living and found a lovely display of pink lustreware cups and saucers on page 181, but that’s about it in the ceramics department. January doesn’t get much better, but if you look you’ll find a black jasper Odessa pattern vase of flowers and a probably-Wedgwood coffee cup on page 84 on the desk illustrating how to keep clutter under control, an article that’s a must-read for me!
BITZ & BYTES
There are several older patterns of Queen’s Ware which have a retailer’s mark for Ovington’s. This summer Art & Antiques Magazine writer Frank Loomis explained a bit about Ovington’s in his column “What’s it worth?” Called Ovington’s China and Glass Store, it was located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and Loomis describes it as an “upscale retailer”. This particular question related to plates made in Benjamin Harrison’s late 1800s White House china, which was made in France by Tresseman & Vogt. We always assumed Ovington’s was a store, but never gave thought to where their wares originated. Obviously they imported other fine products besides Wedgwood.
A LIST OF MAGAZINES TO LOOK FOR
We received the 12 October 2004 Sotheby’s Amsterdam catalog not long ago as a gift. This sale included the Vander Werf Collection of 250 years of Wedgwood production. The catalog is beautifully illustrated. I imagine a bit of searching www.sothebys.com might yield purchase information for a back issue and prices realized, we think it worth the cost and effort.
Always attempting to streamline and organize our magazine library, we like to first check each issue for any pertinent articles. The October 1943 issue of The Magazine Antiques contains an excellent article on the collection of Liverpool pottery amassed by Richard Wistar Harvey, which he gave to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His collection highlights the history of America as illustrated on creamware jugs, vases, tureens and the like made by potters in Liverpool as well as Staffordshire. The article is very well illustrated, albeit in black & white typical of the times. Should one have a particular interest in Liverpool wares, this would be a valuable addition to the library! The issue also sports other references to Wedgwood, Sadler & Green and an interesting ad for a heretofore unknown to us shop in Swampscott, MA known as the Wedgwood Studio.
That’s it for today. We do hope you will let us continue to drop into your email inbox and stay! We welcome your visits to our websites for purchase or information (we’re always adding new informational links & our past eNewsletters can all be found on the links page too) or just a fun browse through the incredible production of our favorite potter! Mention having read our eNewsletter and we’ll take half off your shipping via USMAIL on any order. Be sure to scout our pages for gifts for your favorite Wedgwoodians and once again Merriest of Christmases, happy holidays and our wishes for a healthy, prosperous New Year!
Thank you for reading and visiting!!
Leslie, Matt, Paul, Ron, Kathlyn, John and all of us at Alexis Antiques and CollegePlates.com.
http://www.alexisantiques.com/
http://www.collegeplates.com/
wedgwood@alexisantiques.com
