Letters to the Editor

As a layman who enjoys reading the ATG and dabbles in small buys, I applaud Sotheby’s initiative [to change the buyer’s and seller’s fees].

Sotheby’s recent decision to lower and simplify its charges sparked a flurry of reaction which we published in last week’s issue (ATG No 2630). Letters to our bulging postbag followed soon after.

I would like to thank 1818 Auctioneers and specifically Sheryl who packed and posted.

I am in search of a 16th century brass parade plate by the goldsmith Oratio or Horatio Fortezza who was born in around 1530 in Sebenico, Dalmatia, then part of the Venetian Republic, now Šibenik in Croatia where he died in May 1596.

Following on from my letters last year and articles in Antiques Trade Gazette about the issue of robberies from dealers at markets, I feel compelled to write again.

Sworders’ advertisement (ATG No 2625) for the forthcoming sale of furniture and objects from the late Dick Turpin recalls an anecdote which may amuse.

I read your article in ATG No 2623 regarding UK imports set to become easier and the topic of Temporary Admission (TA) with interest.

The report in ATG No 2615 that some copies of the Agatha Christie titles in the Charlie Watts sale at Christie’s were sold with dust jackets supplied from other copies raises some concerns.

UNESCO is at it again, launching an initiative linked to antiquities with a series of bogus statistics to justify it.

I am writing to share my recent experience attempting to bid in an auction. I completed the online registration and received an email from the auctioneer requesting additional verification (ID & utility bill), fair enough, and also a deposit of several thousand pounds.

The jury is still out, in respect of the sexuality, not to say the erotic urges, of the aesthetically inclined Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), who – arguably, quite innocently – took numerous photographs of very young ladies, sometimes in the nude (the girls, that is).

Following on from my correspondence regarding security for the trade at markets earlier this summer (ATG No 2599), on a recent visit to Kempton I saw first hand that organisers Edward and Jenny Cruttenden have stepped right up to the mark and I would say are offering one of the most secure environments for traders in London and the south east and deserve much praise.

I act for the Goldsmiths’ Company of the City of London and the Goldsmiths’ Hallmark Authentication Committee. Your article ‘Elizabethan goblet good to go after further examination’ page 4, ATG No 2612, is materially misleading. That arises from a typo in the auction catalogue.

Regarding Christopher Crellen’s carte de visite (Letters, ATG No 2615), the following might be of interest.

Re: ‘More than $19m of antiquities have been returned to Italy following an investigation by New York authorities’, an ATG website story on October 17.

I own this rather macabre looking carte de visite, and wondered if ATG readers would enjoy the challenge of identifying its subject in the run-up to Halloween.

Your article ‘Rare Canadiana in Sussex… and another Bobins’ (Books and Works On Paper, ATG No 2607, plus an online version) made one significant error in an otherwise excellent review.

We were disappointed to read the article The Young Guard, published in ATG No 2609. After an hour-long interview discussing our experiences as young women in the beginning of our careers, we were taken aback by the published article’s seemingly disparaging portrayal of our narrow commentary around some of those experiences.

At 59, I am not sure whether the ‘Young Guard’ at Forum Auctions (ATG No 2609) would count me as an old man, but like a great many of us in the British antiques trade, in books and otherwise, of course I am white.

With regards to J Boyle of Co Kildare’s letter (‘Remember Crystal Palace 1900?’, ATG No 2609), the ‘Crystal Palace Picture Gallery’ was founded as an exhibition space in 1856, and during its heyday at Sydenham held an annual selling exhibition of many hundred modern paintings.