This week I am asking your help! And of course also showing you a fantastic piece of porcelain. Here you see a pair of sublimely made potpourri vases in the Rococo Revival style, made in about 1835. Potpourri vases have perforated covers and although you can of course take the covers off and use them for flowers, they were originally meant to be filled with dried and scented fruits and seeds; this is called potpourri. Georgian and Victorian homes could get quite stuffy with a

Nothing cheers me up as much as a beautifully laid table. A table laid with care, with well made dishes, glasses and cutlery, is the setting for a beautiful meal. And did you know that one of the most important hormones for our mental wellbeing, oxytocin, is generated while eating together? That's why meals are such a cornerstone of our mental health; and friendships, love and business have always happened over meals. Today I am showing you a wonderful dessert service that I

When I see Bow figures, I find them hard to resist. Often the ones I find are so banged up or badly restored that I can't really get involved in buying them... but these two beauties passed the test!⁠ Meet Arlecchino and Columbina, two figures of the Commedia dell'Arte, an Italian comical theater that inspired the English Punch & Judy. Although a whole lot more sophisticated than that... no endless fistfights but rather a musical serenade by bagpipes and hurdy gurdy.⁠ ⁠ What

It's that time of the month - my next column in Homes & Antiques has come out, and this time it is about a revolutionary man who changed the course of Staffordshire, and, in some way, probably the world: Josiah Wedgwood. I have not traded a lot of Wedgwood items in my career as a porcelain trader, but am now thinking I probably should! Not only made Wedgwood many amazing items in various forms of china, the man Josiah himself was an extraordinary person who changed a lot in t