DALLAS, TX.- Nearly a century before Jim Henson gave us his marvelous Muppets, generations before the far-out World of Sid & Marty Krofft, and decades before Ray Harryhausen delighted moviegoers with his fantastical stop-motion creatures, there was the weird and wonderful pottery of the Martin Brothers. The expressive wonders dreamed up by the Victorian-era potters look as fresh and charismatic as any modern-day Henson character — Martinware tobacco jars, vases, spoon warmers burst with personality, fur, feathers, scales, knowing gazes and gorgeous salt glazes. They delighted collectors and artists at the turn of the last century and continue to seduce new generations. On April 18, in its Pursuit of Beauty: Art Nouveau, Art Deco & Art Glass event, Heritage presents a rare and thoughtful selection of Martin Brothers pottery, including the kind of wondrous creatures that made the Brothers, and their inventions, luminaries of the Arts & Crafts movement. These pieces are so charming and odd that people do a double take when you tell them just how long ago they were brought to life.

Founded in 1873 by four brothers — Robert Wallace, Walter, Edwin and Charles — the output of the London-based Martin Brothers is widely considered a primogenitor of the 20th-century studio pottery movement, and while the Brothers’ signature Wally Bird tobacco jars and other strange-yet-functional critters look like they could have been created just last week, they are of a piece with the trippy sensibilities we associate with the Victorians (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and laudanum come to mind) — the most popular Martin Brothers’ “grotesques” are also often the most arch, with baleful, weary or ironic gazes rendered in extreme anthropomorphic caricature, and all without losing a lick of usefulness. Then and now, a Wally Bird’s exasperated or sardonic expression may conjure a cynical politician, an amused bartender, an exhausted uncle — the playfulness is the point and the Victorians, including Pre-Raphaelite painters Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were smitten. Queen Mary herself in 1914 ordered 60 pieces for the Paris Exhibition. And when you come across a blubbery, wide-mouthed Martinware spoon warmer with his bizarre scales, floppy ears and stubby tail — he may as well come with his own bouncy-tuba soundtrack — you understand why.

“The Martin Brothers grotesques are among more than 100 lots of early-20th century Art Pottery drawn from a private collection that has been in storage for several decades,” says Samantha Robinson, Heritage’s Director of Decorative Arts and Design. “Imagine our delight as we unpacked one charismatic grotesque after another! We are honored to present to the Art Pottery community this fresh-to-market collection, which includes masterworks from both sides of the Atlantic.”

The collection of Martinware in this event includes not only the studio’s hallmark grotesques (get a load of this wondrous beast) but also gorgeously salt-glazed (if not often incredibly fun) vases emblazoned with the Brothers chimeric wonders. Pottery fans can further celebrate that so many key works of art pottery in this event — ranging from George Ohr and FHR Fred Robertson to Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat and Clement Massier and much more - nearly all drawn from a single important private collection.

This most comprehensive offering of art pottery to date is joined by strong selections of other works from that ultra-fertile and innovative era: Inventive American glass is well-represented here by choice Tiffany Studios lamps and Favrile glass: A Tiffany Studios leaded-glass-and-patinated bronze Trumpet Creeper chandelier, circa 1910, is graphically stunning in undulating earth tones ringed with sky-blue; it’s joined by three rare Tiffany Studios Tel el-Amarna examples, including a decorated red Favrile vase and a fine cameo Nasturtiums vase. Also on the stateside front: A fantastic array of Steuben Aurene glass, from an important private collection, is a true highlight of this packed event and showcases the width and breadth of Aurene glass production at Steuben — roughly 1904 to 1933 — through its comprehensive range of colors, techniques, and decorations. It is a mesmerizing material representation of Frederick Carder’s never-ending search for the spectacular.

Across the pond in those years French glass reigned, and this event is Heritage’s first to introduce selections from the sweeping and extraordinary Nelkin Collection, which will unfold at Heritage, across nearly a dozen categories, over the course of 2024. The collection, amassed over decades by the late philanthropist Ruth Sylvia Nelkin includes virtuoso pieces of French art glass, much of which has not seen the market in more than 30 years. All proceeds go to charities that were close to the Nelkin family’s hearts.

“Pâte de verre is the rarest and most exquisite of all French art glass, made in an ancient technique revived in France in the late 19th century,” says Nick Dawes, Heritage’s Senior Vice President of Special Collections. “Illuminated pieces, or veilleuses, have been hard to find for decades, and this may be because Ruth Nelkin owned almost 20 of them. Our specialists are greatly enjoying handling the collection as Ruth Nelkin clearly did, and each of them confirms her remarkable eye for quality and the love and respect she had for great objects.”

Other highlights in the Pursuit of Beauty event include a monumental Galle calla lily vase; a selection of works depicting American dancer and theater innovator Loïe Fuller that includes bronzes and works on paper; and a stunning vase by Lyon-based designer and metalsmith Claudius Linossier (1893-1953) that epitomizes the artist’s embrace of dinanderie, a technique that involves the decoration of hand-raised and hammered metal vessels with metal oxides.

“Our Pursuit of Beauty category presents works from the late 19th- and early- 20th centuries across all media, in order to explore makers’ various responses to a moment of rapid transformation,” says Robinson. “Through the works of Martin Brothers, Tiffany Studios, Argy-Rousseau and their contemporaries, we see a simultaneous revival of traditional — even ancient — media, techniques, and motifs and embrace of new technologies to create visual languages befitting of the era. Our most diverse offering to date, our April 18 event celebrates the period’s panoply of styles, from Aesthetic Movement and Arts & Crafts to Art Nouveau and Art Deco.”