A look at the design, market and legacy of Victorian pottery

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

More Celebrity Majolica: Osbourne, Streisand, Wood, and Hope

In the past we've shown majolica from the collections of Greta Garbo, Whoopie Goldberg and Bernard Madoff. Well, we've come across a few more from celebrity auction site Julien's Auction house to share with you.

The first is a group of Joseph Roth and French Barbotine majolica as well as Royal Winton earthenware wall pockets from the estate of Ozzie and Sharon Osbourne.

Royal Winton and Joseph Roth wall pockets from the Osbourne estate


Barbotine majolica wall pockets from Osbourne estate

French Barbotine majolica, Fives Lille majolica and 
unattributed earthenware wall pockets from Osbourne estate

The next is a Bretby jardiniere and pedestal from former Jeff Beck/ Faces/ Rolling Stone guitarist Ronnie Wood.
Breathy majolica jardiniere and pedestal from Ron Wood estate

Here is a French piece from the estate of Barbra Streisand.

French jardiniere from Streisand estate

Finally we have a set of contemporary majolica serving pieces from the estate of Bob Hope. Of all the celebrity majolica collections this was the largest with a group of 120 pieces.

Representative green majolica from Hope state

I'm always fascinated by the objects owned by celebrities. These people have unlimited resources and can afford anything they want. What attracted them to the pieces shown? There's no way of ever knowing but it does offer us a tiny window into the lives --and the taste-- of the rich and famous.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Majolica in the Movies: Red


Today I received my copy of the quarterly Majolica International Society newsletter. 


As usual it was a nice job by Duane and Wanda of combining news in the majolica community with topics of interest to collectors. One of these articles was their version of our own Majolica in the Movies!
Joan Stacke reported seeing majolica in the Helen Mirren movie Red. Not having seen the film I decided to do a search of images from the movie to see if I could find anything. Sure enough everything mentioned in the artcle was absolutely right! Take a look!




Helen Mirren plays a sweet older lady who has a lovely home, collects antiques and kills people. How lovely!
Actually it sounds cool. I intend to watch it when it shows up on cable. Chalk one up for Joan!

I wonder off there will be majolica in Red 2 too?

To view the trailer go here.