Letters to the Editor

MADAM – May I please offer three cheers to your correspondent, Edric van Vredenburgh, who has put his finger firmly on a fundamental flaw in our government’s proposed new legislation on ivory (ATG No 2337).

MADAM – John Lewis’ letter (ATG No 2341) in which the chairman of the Public Monuments & Sculpture Association reveals he is seeking counsel’s opinion, in respect of a legal challenge to the proposed ivory trade ban, raises three key questions:

MADAM – We have been following the ivory debate in your pages with anxious concern, in spite of being specialists in vernacular, naive and folk art, whose business would rarely be directly impacted by the near-total ivory ban planned by the government.

MADAM – Sir William McAlpine (Obituary, ATG No 2340) often engaged the services of my father, John Pryke, a specialist structural and contracting engineer, and was very supportive to him when our family business went the unfortunate way of so many (as opposed to McAlpine’s).

MADAM – The Public Monuments & Sculpture Association shares many of the concerns which have been expressed in your letters pages since the last statements from Defra on the ivory issue.

MADAM – Michael Baggott’s recent letter about the potential adverse impact of the ivory sales ban on the display of ivory pieces by museums is, with respect, misguided.

MADAM – I have been dealing in Oriental antiques for almost 50 years and have been a supporter of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) for most of this time.

MADAM – We are all devastated at what is being proposed by the government in relation to ivory.

MADAM – I am sending you a photo of some small sewing tools in carved ivory, made c.1840.

MADAM – Last year readers may recall a Victorian presentation ‘ivory tusk’ dinner gong was removed from display in one of the Royal Collection exhibitions.

MADAM – Thank you for printing my previous correspondence (ATG No 2337). If I thought that a ban on pre-1947 ivory would stop the death of 50 elephants I would stop writing.

MADAM – The government’s ill-conceived attack on antique ivory will likely mean that two pieces in my home – a 19th century Cantonese puzzle-ball chess set and my wife’s Corpus Christi acquired shortly after our marriage 50 years ago – now have no value in probate.

MADAM – My collection of Troika ceramics includes some rare pieces, notably two bowls of fruit.

MADAM – As a dealer (and collector) in antique needlework tools and other small collectables, I am dismayed and angered by the proposals for the ivory ban as outlined in detail in last week’s ATG.

MADAM – I would suggest sending a copy of last week’s ATG guide to the ivory ban to every MP with an appropriate covering letter.

MADAM – Having read the government (Defra) statement on the UK ivory ban (ATG No 2337), it is obvious that far from offering clarity, it is flawed on the following points:

MADAM – I am alarmed at the government’s apparently poor understanding of how the trade works and its relationship with collectors and venerable institutions.

MADAM – Defra’s findings outlined in the post-consultation document include an extraordinarily impractical provision for the ‘de minimis’ exemption – requiring registration (with an as yet unspecified fee) of all objects with an ivory content below 10% created before 1947.

MADAM – I concur with everything that Michael Baggott wrote in ATG No 2235.

MADAM – I sympathise with your correspondent Phil Higginbotham (Letters, ATG No 2335), who decries booksellers’ notes on endpapers.