SOMETHING OLD

i For a child
Doll’s house
Moritz Göttschalk

Originating in Germany and the Low Countries in the mid-16th century, doll’s houses were initially designed as display cabinets for valuable miniatures. However, children soon got in on the act. This house was designed in the early 20th century by leading German maker Moritz Göttschalk. Under a signature red roof, it opens to reveal six rooms, a closet and trap-door access to servant’s quarters in the attic. There are also small porcelain electrical sockets throughout so the house can be atmospherically lit. $8,000
www.juliaauctions.com

ii Good value
China trio
Shelley
When it comes to afternoon tea and cake – Christmas or otherwise – you would be hard-pushed to find more refined china than a Shelley art deco “trio”. In the 1920s and 1930s the Staffordshire-based Shelley China company produced various tea wares that really captured the modernity and spirit of the art deco style. Comprising a cup, saucer and plate, this set is in the octagonal Queen Anne shape and is hand-painted in egg yellows, black and shades of grey with what many collectors consider to be Shelley’s most elegant pattern, Sunrise and Tall Trees. £70-95
www.susiecooperceramics.com

iii For her
Paperweight
Clichy
Decorative glass paperweights have been made in many places since their invention in the early 19th century – notably Murano in Italy and the Scottish Borders. However, none has surpassed in quality the French weights made in the mid-19th century by three glassworks: Baccarat, St Louis and Clichy. This example was made by the latter in Paris around 1850. Set on a moss-green ground and magnified under a clear glass dome, it features thousands of tiny polychrome glass canes cut and bundled into an exquisite, highly naturalistic floral pattern traditionally known as millefiori, a thousand flowers. €1,200
www.auctions-fischer.de

iv For him
Jacobite goblet
English
This antique glass has history. It was made around 1746, the year of the battle of Culloden. The bowl is engraved in support of the losing side – the Jacobites, who had attempted to restore a Stuart king to the English, Scottish and Irish crowns. Retaining gilded highlights, it depicts a white rose and a rose bud. the former symbolises the “Old Pretender”, James Stuart; the latter his son, the “Young Pretender”, Bonnie Prince Charlie. The Jacobite supporter would pass his wine glass over a water glass to toast the “king” over the water in France. £1,800
www.antiqueglass-london.com

v Special splurge
Desk clock
Fabergé
Dated just pre-1899, this superb desk clock was made in St Petersburg by Fabergé, jewellers to the Russian tsars. Housing a Swiss movement, it displays a white enamel dial with Arabic numerals and gilt hands, in a silver laurel wreath bezel on a white guilloche enamel lozenge ground, all within a purple guilloche enamel outer border with coloured laurel wreath and ribbon motifs. Substantially higher than the auctioneer’s £7,000-£10,000 estimate, its recent hammer price demonstrates Fabergé’s enduring power to surprise, amaze and render an international credit crunch apparently irrelevant. £192,000
www.dnfa.com

Judith Miller is the author of annual antiques and collectables guides for Millers

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SOMETHING NEW

1 For him
After Glow
Vincenzo di Cotiis
Architect-designer di Cotiis mainly works in reclaiming found objects, dismantling and reassembling them to create the entirely new, which he sells in his Milan gallery. This lamp, produced by Pisa-based Ceccotti, probably started life with two salvaged light fittings but is actually virgin production rather than recycling. Its two tempered glass and burnished brass shades are joined together with a bent tubular stem. One shade holds the light and the other provides the base, which sits either on the floor or on a surface. €4,314
www.ceccotticollezioni.it

2 For a child
Wooden shark
Alexander Calder
In 1927 the artist also created a series of mechanical wooden toys with a manufacturer in Wisconsin, US, around the same time Calder made his Cirque Calder sculptures, now at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2003, wooden toymaker Vilac and the Calder Foundation put the collection back into production. In addition to this red shark, there is a brown bull, a grey kangaroo, a green elephant and a black cat. The toys are currently for sale at London’s Royal Academy of Arts alongside the show Miró, Calder, Giacometti, Braque: Aimé Maeght and His Artists. £120, www.vilac.com

3 For her
Luna II
Lena Bergström
This is museum-quality art glass, hand produced by artisan blowers and cutters in the workshops of leading Swedish company Orrefors. Bergström is one of Sweden’s best known glass designers and the piece is from Winterland Lena, a new show of her work at London’s Vessel Gallery, on until January 2. The show includes several brilliant new chandeliers, both for those with a bigger budget and the more economical, such Luna I and II in a high and low version. £1,395 www.vesselgallery.com

4 Good value
Wedge
Ed Carpenter
This doorstop is by Ed Carpenter, half of Klauser and Carpenter, a London-based duo whose work for Established and Sons has put them firmly on the radar. Computer-cut from untreated solid European oak, the one painted edge comes in pink, green, yellow or blue as well as the more sombre cream or dark brown. Carpenter has given the humble doorstop a new lease of life. It is now not only useful but beautiful too. They are made in the UK by Thorsten Van Elten. £5.95
www.twentytwentyone.com

5 Special splurge
Pare a vent
Vincent Darré
After a long career in fashion working at Moschino and Ungaro and alongside Karl Lagerfeld at both Chanel and Fendi, Darré has moved into design, opening his first gallery, Maison Darré, this autumn in Paris. He calls it “a laboratory of his imagination” and it includes rather fabulous (if not a little odd) tables and consoles made with bone-like legs. This screen, with its X-rays of a lizard, frog, ostrich and giraffe, is called Pare a vent visite médicale au Zoo, or medical visit at the zoo. It is hand lacquered and limited to an edition of 10. €8,000
www.maisondarre.com

Nick Vinson is special projects director at Wallpaper* magazine