If your garden could use a pick-me-up, you’re in luck. It’s here: Melissa Penfold’s September Garden sale with a 170+ collection of classic one-of-a-kind architectural ornaments and sculptures, is likely to make your garden more beautiful than your house.
Find aged stone, wood, and metal architectural ornaments, weathered urns, fountains, and bronzes that bring instant patina, interest, and focal points to outdoor spaces, whether it’s a tiny courtyard or a sprawling country garden.
They fill the sweet spot between patio chairs and sofas, making them easy to refresh gardens of all sizes.
There are pieces to lift a gloomy outdoor corner, add a layer of mystique, or introduce height or symmetry.
The 170+ edit offers the dream garden pieces that interest Melissa right now, such as architectural ornaments: decorative urns on plinths, pedestals, pediments, bas reliefs, finials, French figural fountains, jardinieres, lamp posts, and a fabulous assortment of benches, tables, and chairs. There are mammoth lanterns, monumental garden planters with large mature buxus, gorgeous antique French marble-top tables with wrought iron bases, and lovely big stoneware pots unlike anything else around to anchor something at the end of a path, to mark an area you’ve become interested in or to cover up something you don’t want to see.
If your garden could use a pick-me-up, you’re in luck. These are items to lift a gloomy corner, add a layer of mystique, or introduce height or symmetry.
Find a rare Auguste Moreau signed cast bronze 2.1m fairy and a spectacular solid marble set of hand-carved, oversized fingers and thumb, “Hold Nature in Your Hand” to be placed around a tree, as well as an impressive pair of ex-Graham Geddes solid cast bronze, double-handled urns on tall plinths. Plus fun items, there are painted metal 1960s French Daisy-style garden chairs, as well as monkey and octopus centrepieces, for mini moments of wit.
Lot 45: A heavy hand-forged wrought iron table with a thick white marble top,
Estimate $2,800, lawsons.com.au
There is garden furniture, planters and pots like they have on the Riviera.
Find a pair of French-style urns on plinths, and there are plenty of statues and other ornaments to add a sculptural note, the kind that are featured in grand European gardens for centuries. For example, the most spectacular hand-carved sandstone urn on a matching plinth, that wouldn’t look out of place at Versailles.
Start with standing lions in white marble, antique terracotta lions, bronze whippets, cast iron whippets, handsome cast iron dogs, stone statues, sandstone gate finials with weathered patina, lovely cast iron urns and plinths after the originals by Claud Ballin, and every kind of planter including heavy cast iron Versailles-styles as well as the most spectacular antique French 19th-century limestone urns, and antique cast iron champagne urns with original aged painted finish, or an elegant French iron conservatory bench.
There are Victorian-style cast iron letterboxes, teak garden dining chairs, urns planted with mature buxus spheres, and Washington navel oranges. Also on offer are benches in the Coalbrookdale style with oak leaf pattern, to the Chinoiserie style teak, and plenty of fountains including simple waterspouts in the form of fish or lion’s heads.
Make your garden look bigger, more dramatic, and yes, more impressive, with a judiciously placed urn on plinth such as a mammoth cast iron urn with Griffin style handles featuring aged patina.
Also on offer: an impressive mid-19th century French mantle with separate mirror, as well as a glass reinforced bas relief of a family group.
Oh and we love the charming brass and crystal girandoles, and the antique composite finial you could use inside to make a statement, and make sure you check the French-style 1960 Daisy chairs which don’t turn up at auction much.
Plus, a few finds for interiors, too, such as a superb single-drawer French antique Boulle centre table or bureau, and plenty of hand-carved giltwood mirrors.
Lot 44: A superb single-drawer French antique Boulle center table or Bureau circa 1850,
Estimate $3,500, lawsons.com.au
For fun moments, there are all kinds of sitting monkey centrepieces, and classic Etruscan stoneware urns.
Expect plenty of garden items in earth tones that will blend in. It’s about how the colour and material reads from far away as most people spend just as much time looking at their garden from the house as they do from indoors.
And just because they’re meant these garden objects are meant for outside doesn’t mean they can’t stand resplendent in exquisite interior settings, offering opulence with soul, fantasy with fun, and generously sprinkling their gravitas on guests.
Discover garden mirrors that can multiply lush hydrangeas, reflect cloud-dotted skies and make sunshine dance.
There are benches and statues which are a fantastic way to play with your patch of green: they offer a bit of fun, drama and theatre.
A garden becomes more cozy and warm, with a beloved focal point—a statue, fountain or pair of planters that amps it up. It feels more like an active space or a room if you’re using garden ornaments.
Get ready to find that one piece you didn’t know you wanted (and you’ll never be able to live without). Your garden will never be the same again, when you’ve shopped the collection.
Melissa’s collections have one distinction that sets them apart: every demographic actively participates. Everyone from Gen Z to the Silent Gen go nuts over her look.
Melissa approaches objects with her legendary designer’s eye, picking out well-crafted pieces that are beautiful to live with, and suggests you use them decoratively, rather than obsessively.
Melissa’s Lawsons sales are the decorator and tastemaker’s favourite destination for rare finds and expertly-edited garden items.
Lot 96: A pair of large terracotta Anduze-style urns with large Buxus spheres,
Estimate $1,000, lawsons.com.au
The beauty – and excitement – of Melissa’s sales is that you never know what sort of treasure you’re going to find to warm up your place with charm and personality.
It’s a great way to nab a new favourite to brighten your garden and your mood.
Melissa’s collections are unexpectedly intimate, and always, always delightful – like a big curated emporium of style.
No matter what you’re seeking, you’re likely to find just what you’re looking for in this garden collection that covers all tastes, budgets, and settings.
SHOP NOW – Melissa Penfold’s Garden Sculpture & Architectural Ornaments Collection.
“Your surroundings reflect what you think of yourself, so surround yourself with the best you can afford,” Melissa Penfold.
“I believe in the power of collecting and decorating to improve your life.” Melissa Penfold.
