Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Scotland which has a long history of traditional crafts that are highly sought after today, particularly among tourist collectors looking to find objects related to the auld country. Perthshire dealer Becca Gauldie had all the answers.

Treen – the collective term for domestic items made from a tree – is plentiful throughout Scotland which is sometimes surprising, considering the lack of native forests.

Bickers, piggins, luggies and quaichs are all treen bowls made by tinker families, many of whom travelled around the country selling their wares from door to door. A bicker is a two-handled small, straight-sided bowl with flat handles. A piggin is similar but with upright handles, while a luggie is slightly larger and with one splayed upright handle. ll have an intricate “feathered” construction which picks them out as being Scottish.

A quaich is the smallest and best known bowl with two or more handles used for drinking whisky. Although most of these objects were made from native holly and sycamore, quaichs were also made in metal, silver and other materials. The decorative feathering process refers to a method of coopering that involved overlaying tiny slivers of wood in the staves to use as joints. When damp, the wood swells making the bowl watertight.

Willow lathies were bound around the outside of the vessel to keep the object together, in case it should dry out. Sadly, many of these have fallen apart when they were no longer in use, usually as a result of central heating. All these items vary dramatically in price according to their size, but collectors should expect to pay upwards of £180, depending on the complexity of the design and condition of the article.

If you fancy collecting something made by the travellers but can’t afford drinking vessels, then pegs and baskets offer still excellent value. They were one of the last traditional crafts to survive and were sold from door to door up to the 1950s. Pegs are beautifully made and make attractive paperclips, while the baskets are stronger and more durable than their modern day alternatives.

Beautifully turned elm dairy bowls and deeply carved butter stamps, made from the 18th century through to the early 20th century, are also highly desirable. While many butter stamps typically feature the carved outline of a cow or a thistle as part of the stamp, it is also possible to find examples carved with the name of a farm. These are of particular interest to collectors since they relate directly to one place and are undoubtedly unique.

Another particularly Scottish kitchen article is the spirtle, the unusually long-handled stick for stirring porridge. Fine examples often have a finial in the shape of a thistle and but a plain one can be picked up for under £15. They look good in a kitchen jar and, according to Becca Gauldie, are also good for stirring spaghetti!

Perthshire and Angus are renowned for their Laburnum furniture and table treen. This is usually characterised by extreme tones of light and dark in the same piece of wood, originally caused by the damp or dry conditions in which the wood was grown. Laburnum is not a wood used to any extent elsewhere in Britain and so is particularly interesting to collectors of Scottish pieces.

Also commonly found in a farmhouse kitchen is the candle box. Usually made of Scots Fir and wall mounted, they feature varying levels of decoration, from Celtic motifs, biblical quotes to animal figures. Quite often candle boxes finished in what is called a buttermilk stain, a shiny brown finish of several layers of different coloured paints. Although they vary dramatically in price, a plain painted candle box will sell for around £90.

It is impossible to ignore one item of treen that is not native to Scotland but was commonly found in cottages throughout the fishing areas that it has become very much a part of the Scots heritage. Brightly decorated ‘Riga’ ware was brought to the Orkneys and Shetland Isles by the Baltic fishermen and traded for illegally distilled whisky with their Highland neighbours. Riga ware is made from feather light Baltic pine and, with its deep and brightly coloured traditional decoration, is quite different from anything made in Scotland.

Until quite recently it was a common sight on the windowsills of cottages in many seaside villages. Riga ware has become scarce in the last 10 years and yet it still compares favourably in price with Scottish treen, a small bowl selling for around £10, while a spectacular piece would cost at least £400.

A famous character in the development of Scottish folk art is the Blind Man of Ayrshire, a homeless individual who travelled the area in the mid 19th century and whose carvings of ladles, plaques and wonderful three dimensional integral hinge snuff boxes are without comparison. The depth of his carving is attributed to the fact that he was blind and carved entirely by touch. His scenes are often drawn from the work of Robert Burns – depicting figures dancing and drinking with sheep or hounds in attendance.

Most cottages homes across the UK would have a hanging dresser, or plate rack, made by a local craftsman. Scottish examples usually have a bar across the front to allow the plates to lean forwards, which saves a little in height for cottages with low ceilings.

Increasingly sought after today and very hard to find, they look particularly attractive when adorned with the typical Scottish spongeware cottage pottery.

Bowls, mugs, plates and jugs, hand-decorated with images of animals, flowers, mottoes, butterflies, shells and native birds applied by the deft application of coloured slip with a sponge are collected across the world.

Competition for the best examples is always fierce among collectors. However, there are many mass produced modern copies, but they have none of the charm of the original pieces, and are easy to spot.

Condition is almost unimportant. Since these items were in constant use, undamaged pieces are hard to find and many collectors are happy to accept a little wear and tear.

A simple sponged porringer (porridge bowl) in good condition will cost upwards of £60.

Horn and bone items are also strongly characteristic of Scotland.

Snuff boxes carved with images of fish, snuff mulls decorated with elaborate carving and with Cairngorm finials, powder horns with scrimshaw decoration, ladles for punch and snuff, and spoons for porridge are all very much a part of the Scots heritage.

It is also possible to find intricately carved snuff boxes made from Baleen ivory, a by-product of the whaling industry.

Look out for the beautiful little ladles for reaching into tobacconists’ jars and pierced spoons made from mutton bone and designed for taking snuff.

A simple horn spoon can still be bought for about £10. Snuff boxes of simple design cost from about £50, although snuff mulls command higher prices from around £250 upwards, depending on their quality.

Scotland is particularly known for its wonderful patchwork quilts, made in traditional Scottish patterns, sometimes with pieces of old tartan plaid.

Rag or ‘hookie’ rugs, made from scraps of worn clothing or left over material, often in unusually bright colours and patterns, are also sought after. They make an ideal addition to the home lying in front of the hearth and a roaring fire.

Look out too for bannock turners and toasters, (for baking oatcakes in front of the fire), made by blacksmiths.

Local craftsmen made elaborate wirework garden furniture, unique stone items such as the very unusual Scottish garden watchstands, and cheese presses. They were the same craftsmen who made gravestones in Perthshire and Angus.

And Becca Gauldie’s advice for new collectors? Buy while you still can – there isn’t a limitless supply of good folk art and the best pieces are too often snapped up by overseas buyers happy to cash in on the fact that Folk Art from the British Isles is less expensive than their own.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show
A selection of Scottish treen which Becca Gauldie has for sale

Distinctive spongeware pottery, unique to Scotland. Note the carpet bowls, much loved souvenirs of Victorian tourists

Charmingly naïve Scottish scrimshaw, in the form of a beaker and a decorative powder flask

The Victorians loved the wirework garden chairs and flower planters made by craftsmen north of the border.

They were made in a glassworks in Perthshire and such is the universal appeal of antiques and collectables, I felt I needed no excuse to stay north of the border with this week’s column.

In the event, telephone buyers from Scotland took three pieces, a Hampshire collector had travelled to the sale to buy two, while the remainder was shared between three local buyers.

The most valuable piece was a circular fruit bowl in purple, shading to green and amber with aventurine flecks, which sold for £280, more than twice the top estimate.

Aventurine is the name given to opaque or semi-translucent glass flecked with small metallic particles, which is a particularly attractive feature to much of the most desirable pieces.

These beautiful and remarkable creations are examples of Monart glass made at the Moncrieff glassworks in Perth between 1924 and 1961 by a Spanish glassworker named Salvador Ysart.

Today, they are highly sought after by a relatively small but well-informed group of collectors who prize anything produced by the factory and pay considerable sums for the privilege of taking a piece home.

This is rightly so, in my opinion, for this is glassware that will never be produced again.

However, to the uninitiated, pieces seen in isolation look like so many examples of Sixties kitsch and not everyone appreciates their gaudy colours and flashy styles.

See a group of the pieces properly lit and displayed and understand more readily the skill involved in making them, and their significance becomes increasingly apparent.

Salvador Ysart was born in Barcelona, the son of a glassmaker, although oddly enough, his first job was in a bakery.

However, it was not work he enjoyed, and he soon quit and followed in his father’s footsteps.

At around the turn of the century, the champion of Art Nouveau design, Emile Gallé, established the School of Nancy in France and Ysart was one of many artist craftsmen who left their native land to join workers in the school in 1909.

He subsequently worked for a number of glassmakers around Paris until 1915, when he was recruited to move to Scotland to help the British war effort making such things as laboratory glass and light bulbs.

He and his wife had four sons: Paul, Augustine, Vincent and Antoine who joined their father as apprentices, working first in Edinburgh and then Glasgow until 1922, when they were recruited by John Moncrieff, proprietor of the glassworks of the same name in Perth.

The company was primarily involved in manufacturing industrial and laboratory glass, but Salvador’s interests lay more in decorative objects that he had been producing for Gallé at Nancy.

Tradition has it that in 1923, he made a vase as a raffle prize for his local church which was seen by Moncrieff’s wife, Isobel, who saw its commercial potential.

Herself a talented artist and well-connected in London, she persuaded her husband to invest in the new product line and Monart glass — combining the first syllable of the company’s name with the last syllable of Salvador’s surname — was born.

Production began the following year but was limited to fulfilling orders from leading department stores including Liberty’s of London, the Ysart family working only in their spare time on the project.

Nevertheless, by the early 1930s Monart pattern books were crammed with all manner of glassware ranging from vases and bowls to ink bottles and table lamps.

The glass proved to be a great success and production continued until 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War which necessarily halted output to concentrate on the war effort.

What made Monart glass special was not necessarily the shapes but the vibrant colours in which it was made, much of its inspired by Isobel Moncrieff.

The method of manufacture was complex. It involved mixing coloured glass granules or canes, supplied from Germany, with clear glass which was shaped and moulded and then covered with a layer of clear glass.

Adding crushed charcoal to the mix created air bubbles and gold powder, aventurine, metallic foil or mica flakes were added to give pieces a unique sparkle.

Ironically, the local Woolworth’s was one source of the silver in the form of glitter, but only at Christmas time, when it was used as tree decoration!

Salvador and his sons Vincent and Augustine left the company in 1946 and set up their own business, called Ysart Brothers Glass, producing glass under the name “Vasart”.

By 1949, Vasart was enjoying some success, but the death of both Salvador and Augustine left Vincent to carry on alone and production was in decline by 1956.

Paul Ysart, Salvador’s oldest son, became interested in paperweights and went on to become one of the most important manufacturers of the 1930s.

He remained at Moncrieff’s and restarted Monart production in 1945 but on a much reduced scale. Paul left Moncrieff’s in 1961, joining in Caithness Glass two years later.

It is virtually impossible to tell whether Monart glass dates from before or after the war. Somewhat in contrast to what one might expect, colours were much more subdued, probably because of supply difficulties from post-war Germany.

Even identifying a piece is Monart is problematic. The Vasart glass made by Ysart Brothers was made to compete and is therefore very similar, although this is generally etched with the signature Vasart in script on the base.

Generally speaking, Monart glass is not signed but it has a distinctive pontil mark — made at the time the piece was handblown — which is ground down and polished to a smooth disk surrounded by a smooth circle.

The pontil mark on Vasart glass was usually only ground off to remove sharp surfaces.

Before it left the factory, Monart glass was given a sticky paper label applied to the pontil mark although, of course, they were often lost with the passage of time.

Monart has also been faked over the years. The solution is based on experience. Handle pieces which are known to be authentic and compare them with others that are known either to be wrong or made by competing factories. With time, it’ll become obvious.

And one other tip: Monart and similar pieces made from several layers of glass are known to shatter if exposed to strong sunlight which causes the layers to expand and contract to different degrees. So keep it off the window ledge!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show a selection of Monart glass showing the range of colours and styles available. The table light is particularly sough after and has an auction value £300-500. Other pieces in the pictures can be had for £100-300

It surprised even the auctioneers, who were expecting winning bids of around £10,000, not a new world record auction price. Interestingly enough, I once watched one sell for £90. Who told you antiques weren’t a good investment?

That said, you should probably not buy this stuff to make money.

Fashion being what it is, the gaudy, cabbage rose-bedecked pottery made from the late 19th century onwards at the Fife Pottery in the Gallatown district of Kirkcaldy is most definitely an acquired taste.

Buy it by all means, but only if you love it. There is no guarantee the price spiral it has enjoyed in recent years can continue.

The pottery is known as Wemyss Ware (say it like Weems) and the late Queen Mother was among a great number of collectors whose eagerness to own examples of it sent prices skyward.

There was a time when little was known about Wemyss Ware but the fact that there are a handful of original Fife Pottery employees still alive has aided research and fuelled interest yet higher.

The Fife Pottery was established in 1817, largely with the aid of a substantial loan from a Glasgow bank.

Output was simple domestic pottery for the home market that had very little to commend it, apart, perhaps, from the fact that it was cheap.

Cheap (and better) pottery could be obtained from a hundred other sources, though, and saddled with crippling interest charges on the bank loan, the business went bankrupt after only 10 years.

The pottery changed hands in 1827, the new owner taking on the debts with his acquisition and it was not until 58 years later that the original loan was repaid.

The turnaround was achieved by Robert Heron, grandson of the new owner, who steered the company away from cheap dross for the domestic market, towards more stylish and sophisticated wares decorated by hand rather than uninspiring transfer printing.

He produced teapots, cheese dishes, milk jugs and other tableware intended for exactly the same market as before, but at prices that provided greater profit margins and the chance to extend the product range.

Wemyss Ware was Heron’s inspiration. Early in the 1880s, he imported Bohemian immigrant ceramic painters to Kirkcaldy, enticing them to the cold and bleak Highlands with handsome salaries.

Few stayed long, with the exception of one Karel Nekola, a gifted ceramic artist with a vivid talent and an exceptional creative talent.

Fortunately for Heron, Nekola took a shine to his boss’s cook and the couple married and settled in the area.

Nekola’s unique painting skills made their mark in the factory’s decorating shop immediately and soon, the local decorators working there began to follow his style.

Outsize flowers, fruit and farmyard animals all painted in the strongest colours began to appear on everything produced by the factory, to be snapped up by an eager public keen to own something new and different.

Meanwhile, Heron began to take stock of the product range, axing anything that was difficult or costly to produce.

Instead, he concentrated on simple bedroom and domestic ware such as inkwells, candlesticks, jug and basin sets, early morning tea sets, biscuit and jam jars.

It is exactly these objects that today’s collectors covet most and prices have risen many fold over the last decade or so.

Unfortunately, what Heron failed to correct was the ability to successfully fuse brilliant coloured glazes on to hard-fired earthenware.

The high temperatures required for tough earthenware pots caused the underglaze colours to burn and fade.

Heron responded in the only way he knew how: by reducing the heat and firing the Wemyss Ware in the coldest areas of the kilns.

This resulted in pottery with an underfired, easily damaged body that was simply unable to stand up to the rigours of domestic life.

It was a risk calculated to be offset by the appeal of the strong, fresh colours and designs Nekola and his fellow painters could achieve in the decorating shop.

This has proved to be a double-edged sword for today’s collectors.

Pieces survive with colours still as brilliant as the day they were potted. However damage such as rim chips, broken handles and hairline cracks is rife, and restoration is both costly and tricky.

Consequently, prices for perfect examples of Wemyss have spiralled faster and higher than they might if the ware had been made in harder, stronger body that might have permitted more pieces to survive intact.

Robert Heron died in 1907. Wemyss Ware had its heyday from about 1885-1914, the Great War and increased sophistication among customers sounding its twin death knells.

Improved plumbing meant jugs and bowls were no longer needed in bedrooms; electricity killed off the need for candlesticks in every room and servants to carrying up the morning tea became a thing of the past.

Coupled to this was the dawning of the Art Deco era in which pretty Wemyss had no place, while Wemyss could not compete with a flood of cheap china imported from overseas.

The General Strike of 1926 marked the beginning of the end for the Fife Pottery which finally closed in 1930.

Renewed interest in antiques and collecting over the last 20 or so years has seen a staggering rise in the value of Wemyss Ware.

There was a time when pieces could be picked up in jumble sales and junk shops for a few shillings apiece.

Nowadays, international fine art auctioneers stage sales devoted solely to the ware and a number of dealers specialise in it to the exclusion of everything else.

And the more outrageous the designs and colour schemes, the more valuable the pieces become.

The sleeping pig decorated with roses, shamrock or clover leaves, is arguably the rarest and, for well-heeled, collectors most desirable of all Wemyss ware pieces.

She was produced for the nursery, sometimes with a slot in her back as a money box, and bigger ones as doorstops, while others were made to order and personalised with a child’s name and birthdate.

More scarce are sleeping piglets intended as paper weights, while families of cats, spotted, tabby or others up to their necks in the same cabbage roses that decorate other Wemyss pots are also highly sought after.

Wemyss Ware was named after the nearby cliff top castle home of the Wemyss family. It is rare today owing to its extreme fragility, the result of being fired at extremely low temperatures. This was necessary to produce a ‘biscuit’ body that would absorb the vibrant colours applied by the most delicate of brush strokes. After decoration, it was dipped into soft lead glaze and fired again, also at low temperatures, to further enhance the brilliant colours.

antiques@chris-prouldove.co.uk

Pictures show:

The rare early 20th century sleeping pigs, one decorated with cabbage roses, the other with two apples on a branch, which each sold for a world record £34,800.

When the Wemyss factory closed in 1930, the rights and moulds were purchased by the Bovey Tracey Pottery in Devon who employed Nekola’s son, Joseph, to continue to paint traditional Wemyss Ware until his death from diabetes in 1952. This rare seated cat, with its manic grin and green glass eyes, was painted by Joe Nekola and is worth £2,500-3,500

A trio of Wemyss bowls and jugs dating from the turn of the century and each worth around £1,000 (Photos: Sotheby’s)