Art and antiques news from 2003

IN 1992 Norfolk dealer Liz Allport-Lomax formed Lomax Antiques Fairs to launch the East Anglian Antique Dealers Fair at Langley Park School, Loddon, Norfolk. Now she is arguably East Anglia’s top organiser with four annual events, each with a waiting list.

USA: NEW YORK’s top antiques centre, the Manhattan Art and Antiques Center at 1050 Second Avenue (between 55th and 56th Streets), presents a special celebration Fall in Manhattan from October 23 to 31, when a selection of top dealers from the 100 housed in the building present selling shows of recent acquisitions.

ISLINGTON specialists in Arts and Crafts The Antique Trader move forward a few decades from November 5 to 23 for a selling exhibition of the hottest commodity of the moment, Art Deco. Called simply Art Deco, the show at The Millinery Works Gallery, 85/87 Southgate Road, London N1 brings together 180 exhibits from that period of immense creativity marked midway by the 1925 Paris exhibition of the decorative arts.

London marine sales can be routine affairs, but there was a frisson of speculative interest in this unsigned and unattributed 19th century canvas, right, which ended the 171-lot picture section of Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) October 1 marine offering in Knightsbridge.

Ethelbert White (1891-1972): Painter Printmaker by Hilary Chapman, published by Primrose Hill Press Ltd, Stratton Audley Park, Bicester, Oxon OX27 9AB ISBN 190264834 6 £29.85 hb

SEVEN HUNDRED or so lots were offered in the September 23 sale held by John Nicholson of Fernhurst, and though there were some disappointments – notably the 1776 volume of The Scots Magazine that contained the first Scottish printing of America’s Declaration of Independence, valued at £5000-8000 – almost 80 per cent of lots, big and small, found buyers.

TEXTILES are currently a popular commodity and Wimbledon organiser Paola Francia-Gardiner, who operates as P&A Antiques, has two fairs next month catering for this still expanding market.

HERE is a tale of good luck from Julian Tatham-Losh, who owns and deals out of Top Banana Antiques Mall, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. On returning to his car at the Chatou fair in France recently, Julian lost a money belt containing some £4000 in cash.

CHANGES are afoot over the next few months at the popular Malvern International Antiques & Collectors Fair, held every month at Worcestershire’s Three Counties Showground.

Historians of the craft of fish carving currently believe that the Scotsman John B. Russell (1819/20-1893) was the first professional maker of such models. Working with carver John Tully at the Fochabers Studio, which made models for Farlow & Co. into the 1930s, Russell is known to have been producing these fine trophies from around 1880, although the early date to the example pictured here suggests some rewriting of the literature might be required.

This 10in (25cm) Burleigh Ware pottery wall plate, by Charlotte Rhead established a new auction record for the industrial ceramicist when it sold for £2900 (plus 10 per cent buyer’s premium) at Andrew Hartley Fine Arts on October 8. Consigned to the Ilkley rooms via a local house clearance, the vibrantly-coloured plaque carried the pattern number 4350, a design previously known only from pattern books dated to c.1928-29.

Included amongst the more venerable 18th century flutes, 19th century hurdy gurdies and 17th century harpsicords and spinets that make up the l03-lot sale of early musical instruments to be held at Sotheby’s Bond Street on November 25, is this unusual piece of more recent vintage.

Fontainebleau auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat, 57, has replaced ArtCurial’s Hervé Poulain as head of France’s auctioneers’ association, the Syndicat National des Maisons de Ventes Volontaires (SYMEV).

Bonhams weren’t the only London salerooms to be offering a good selection of antique glasswares. On October 9, just a week after the Harvey’s dispersal, Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% per cent buyer’s premium) had a mixed-owner 280-lot selection of British and Continental glass to offer as part of their monthly At Home series.

LAPADA chief executive John Newgas has set out to reassure his association’s members that their interests are being looked after following criticism over the way recent developments have been handled.

London has shed its reputation as the world’s only major art market centre without a major contemporary fair with the inaugural Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park.

AXA Art are holding a one-day seminar on protecting and conserving art on October 28 at the Royal Society of Arts, London. Before Art Falls Apart: Achieving Consensus on Care, Protection and Value will look at the changing role of dealers, curators, collectors, legal and academic experts, brokers and insurers in this field.

Sad news. The drunken rats and the two-faced lamb have finally parted company.

RUNNING at the racetrack since 1988, Caroline Penman’s Chester Antiques & Fine Art Show is a favourite with both local collectors and the 60 or so dealers who regularly exhibit. It will be held, as usual, at the County Grandstand, Chester Racecourse from October 23 to 25 and, also as usual at this event, most stock will be pre-1920.

Exceptional quality pictures with truly international appeal from long-standing private collections have become an all-too-rare sight in the provinces, but on October 3, thanks to significant consignments from no fewer than three deceased estates, Mallams Oxford (15% buyer’s premium) were able to offer at least half a dozen lots that wouldn’t have looked out of place at any of the world’s most expensive art fairs.