Fairs and Markets

MADAM – As someone who has been dealing in early furniture for over 50 years and who has served on vetting committees for the Grosvenor House and BADA fairs as well as having been a consultant for Sotheby’s, I find TEFAF’s decision to exclude dealers from their vetting is frankly bizarre.

Doom and gloom surrounds retailing in the UK but in the trade plenty of antique centres are bucking the trend. Here we bring you a short focus on a few of them – ideal places to buy a variety of stock offered from a number of dealers in one spot.

When Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre in the pretty Suffolk town 11 years ago, she said she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

A regular stallholder at Arthur Swallow Fairs is Liam Woodgates, director of the Hopkinson Vintage Antique and Art Centre in Nottingham, where a corner display is pictured below.

Keith Richards Antiques brings a selection of early 20th century silver modelled on historic pieces to the first 2019 staging of The Cotswolds Decorative Antiques & Art Fair at Westonbirt School.

Among the works selling at the recent Art & Antiques for Everyone fair in Birmingham was a watercolour by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908).

A trip to France before Christmas to buy unusual gifts is always a good plan. Here are three antiques and vintage brocantes to visit: two well-known weeklies in Paris and a biannual event in Bordeaux.

Cary Whitley has been running her biannual Love Vintage brocantes in June and December in Wanstead, east London, for eight years, with the next on Saturday, December 8.

Events at Ludlow Castle, St Stephen's Church and Hodson Hall

A number of dealers and auctioneers have reacted to TEFAF’s new policy on vetting which will prevent all commercial specialists from being members of its vetting panels.

For its fourth year, Art Fair East comes to Norwich.

The TEFAF decision to remove dealers from vetting at their shows has caused debate (ATG Nos 2367 & 2368). Here, silver dealer Alastair Dickenson writes to ATG giving his view, while we canvass opinion from four more experts.

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

News from Antiques on High, the antiques centre saved for the city of Oxford when it was bought by antique furniture dealer Vincent Page last year, alerted via a tweet about a story in ATG.

Sally Knott has been running the biannual two-day Dorset Brocante for three years at two venues: in August at Deans Court, Wimborne, and in the autumn at Larmer Tree Gardens, near Salisbury.

Dealer association BADA has introduced changes to the vetting committee of its fairs to “ensure independence”. While dealers can still hold vetting positions, the chairs of 16 specialist sub-committees must now be non-exhibitors.

Two years ago we featured ex-paramedic Allun Davies and his business selling vintage luggage in the Gwent town of Pontypool.