Furniture

In a specialist maritime and scientific instruments auction there were only three furniture lots at Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium), but one of them led the day.

A new destination for antiques shopping in Arundel has opened at Merchants Hall.

It is the quirky designs of husband-and-wife team François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne that populate the top echelons of so much French design in the salerooms these days.

The French dealer François Laffanour, whose Galerie Downtown is on the rue de Seine in Paris, has specialised for 25 years in furnishings by post-war architects and designers.

Italy, like many European countries whose economies were ravaged during the war, had to face the challenge of picking itself up and starting afresh once hostilities were over.

Admirers of American neoclassical decorative arts have been treated to a wealth of exhibitions in recent years, and now even more is available to discover and acquire.

Born partly out of necessity and partly out of a reaction to austerity, British design in the immediate post-war era underwent a flowering of innovation with new styles, new materials and a fresh impetus that resulted in a very different class of furniture.

IACF is expecting a buoyant antique and collectors’ fair at Alexandra Palace on Sunday, December 2, including items sourced from shipwrecks.

A unique, high-quality specimen table fitted with Rockingham porcelain plaques is on offer at the next Galloway Fair, which runs from November 23-25 at Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire.

Liza Scolding works at LVS Decorative Arts, a family run business and LAPADA member, which offers an eclectic mix of fine quality and decorative furniture and works of art from the 16th century early 20th century.

Including, as it did, pieces from Alnwick Castle, an ‘attic sale’ based on the Duke of Northumberland’s home was guaranteed to generate more interest than many similarly titled auctions.

Mirrors in a variety of styles and types found new homes at the recent Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair (October 2-7) in Battersea, reinforcing the event as a destination for private buyers and decorators on the hunt for interesting and unusual home furnishings.

Artcurial has made something of a habit of offering parts of the Eiffel Tower, pieces that were removed as part of periodic restorations of the famous landmark on the Paris skyline.

Art Richelieu Castor-Hara is offering a single-owner French collection featuring Old Masters and modern paintings, and classic furniture in a sale at Drouot.

Two Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs made for Glasgow’s Argyle Street Tea Rooms starred at Lyon & Turnbull’s Decorative Arts sale in Edinburgh last week.

Those looking to brighten their home this winter could turn to the wide selection of bright or colourful antiques on offer during the next edition of 'Art & Antiques for Everyone'.

“It was a great deal of work,” said Adam’s (20% buyer’s premium) managing director James O’Halloran of the operation involving the removal of 700 lots – including the ‘Armada Table’ and other massive pieces – to the Drogheda stately home venue of Townley Hall for sale.

The name of the Russian Arctic circle riverine port of Kholmogory derives ultimately from the Finnish Kalmomäki for ‘corpse hill’ or ‘cemetery’, but this is regarded as coincidental to its reputation for carved bonework.