An Eglington Tournament commemoration jug

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Through Designer's Eyes Art director and designer Herman Dommisse's remarkable collection of decorative arts is covering a century and a half of fascinating changes from the 1840s right up to the 1990s. Dommisse explored the avant-garde in the decorative arts, regularly co-operating with museum exhibitions and collecting objects with a 'story'. The collection is remarkable both for its diversity and for the period it covers. The collection opposes an intriguing golden chatelaine from the Romantic period, designed by the French master F.-D. Froment-Meurice, to a pair of plastic discoglasses in fluorescent colours designed by Alessandro Mendini in the 1980s. Also an Egyptian inspired silver claret jug, made by the English silversmith Fox in the days when Verdi's opera Aida opened and the Suez Canal was finished, figures next to exquisite lacquered vases by Jean Lemmens in Japanese style. A leading theme in the collection is Japan which became an infinite source of inspiration for Western artists from 1865 onwards. This is clearly expressed in the early works by Emile Gallé, as shown both in the exuberantly designed clock garniture as in his glassware with a more serene character. The Japanese influence goes well together with avant-garde design, as shown in the works by Dr. Christopher Dresser. His designs in silver, glass and stoneware are impressive in their spare and geometric designs. Dresser's work prefigures much of late-20th-century design. The colourful Italian glass objects produced during the 1950s, enhance various experimental techniques. Thirty years later these experiments were continued by the rebellious designs of Studio Alchimia and Memphis. The most important designer of these movements, Ettore Sottsass, designed a silver centrepiece which seems so heavy that the six columns can barely support it. The native Austrian Sottsass made it nearly eighty years after his famous countryman Koloman Moser designed a stunning centrepiece in silver, lapis lazuli and ivory for the Wiener Werkstätte. The Herman Dommisse collection includes most of the important European stylistic movements in applied art and design during 150 years, showing many single items with new interpretations of form and function. What all the objects have in common is that they have been conceived, made - and collected - with a true 'designer's eye'.

An Eglington Tournament commemoration jug

BY WILLIAM RIDGWAY, 1840

Details

An Eglington Tournament commemoration jug
By William Ridgway, 1840
In the Gothic style, moulded with a medieval tournament scene within bands of grapevine, with a bronze lid
21cm. high
Impressed mark Published by W. Ridgway Son & Co, Hanley, September 1, 1840/9
See illustration

Special notice

Christie's charges a Buyer's premium calculated at 23.205% of the hammer price for each lot with a value up to €110,000. If the hammer price of a lot exceeds €110,000 then the premium for the lot is calculated at 23.205% of the first €110,000 plus 11.9% of any amount in excess of €110,000. Buyer's Premium is calculated on this basis for each lot individually.

Lot Essay

Made on the occasion of the Eglington Tournament at Eglington Castle, Ayrshire, in August 1839.
See for comparable jugs:
G.A. Godden, British Pottery, London, 1974, p. 203

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