The Welsh Sale Session II: Welsh Porcelain, Welsh Antiques & Books

Due to the size of entries, this March's Welsh Sale is in two parts. On Wednesday, March 16th will be Session II: Antiques, Ceramics & Books

The first Welsh Sale of 2022 comes with a second session on the Wednesday and with a splendid section of Nantgarw and Swansea porcelain. Three collections have come together, including a large entry from a home in Neath-Port Talbot, a collection from Powys and four important items from the descendants of B A Williams who is credited in W D John’s ‘Swansea Album’. One of these items is a likely unique Thomas Pardoe painted coffee-can, which features the inscription ‘Mamma’s Darling’. Personally decorated Welsh porcelain items of this nature are rarely seen. It is a small but wonderful object. The highlight of the section has surely got to be the Nantgarw cabinet cups with a decoration that will surely make your heart sing.

From the same property as the mentioned Neath paintings mentioned earlier, is a collection of Swansea Etruscan pottery, a range which is rarely seen on the market.

Please see our article on Swansea Etruscan ware: Swansea's Greek Tragedy — Rogers Jones Co (EN)

We are also delighted to offer at the end of the Wednesday session of The Welsh Sale over 120 books from one Wales’ most prominent book people.

For the last 50 years Jeff Towns has been buying and selling books and for years he was based in his Dylans Bookstore in Swansea’s poetically named Salubrious Passage. But he also took his stock out to many Eisteddfodau around Wales and to Antiquarian Book Fairs around the UK and across the United States. His main area of specialisation was all things Welsh – from Dylan Thomas to Dafydd Ap Gwilym and from Owen Glyndwr to R.S. Thomas and from the Mabinogion to the Rebecca Riots!

He is not quite finished with books, but spends more time reading and writing them, and so he feels the time is right to offer for sale some highlights from the collection he has amassed with us in The Welsh Sale.

Jeff’s large consignment of books is complemented by a selection of fine Neath related antiquarian books and a consignment of Gregynog books which have reached us from Los Angeles.