UK

BACK in April in Antiques Trade Gazette No 1633, we pictured and discussed an unusual Derby porter mug decorated with industrial scenes of two Mancunian foundries which sold at Bonhams in London for £3800.

JAGUAR Fairs say they will launch an event to fill the gap now created between the Swinderby and Newark fairs.

DMG Antique Fairs have reconfirmed their commitment to the new three-day format Newark fairs for 2005. Acknowledging that many people had voiced strong views that had not gone unheard, managing director Jason Franks emphasised dmg’s long-term commitment to the fair in terms of promotion and investment linked to a weekend slot.

THE V&A have opened the first new gallery in their £30m transformation programme.

SHALL I be mother? At first glance there’s nothing very exciting at all about this Edwardian teapot. Decorated with printed, painted and aerographed flower sprays against a graduated green and yellow ground and highlighted by burnished gilt, it is typical of the cheap and cheerful earthenwares churned out in their thousands in Staffordshire at the turn of the last century.

BUYING and selling art and antiques is one thing, but what about transporting it from the place of sale to its destination?

THE winners of the Asian Art in London Outstanding Work of Art Awards, sponsored by the Antiques Trade Gazette, were announced last week.

NEXT year Arthur Swallow Fairs’ International Antiques and Collectors’ Fairs at RAF Swinderby will be held almost a full week before the Newark fair.

AN early 20th century Tiffany Favrile ten-light lamp was an unusual consignment for a provincial auction house. The market for Tiffany is largely based in America and even the major London rooms tend to sell their best consignments through their New York rooms. However, the family of the late Peter Grant, former manager of the legendary rock group Led Zeppelin, live locally and put his lamp into Dreweatt Neate Tunbridge Wells Saleroom's (15% buyer's premium) September 3 sale.

FOR the first time conservation specialists will participate in the Dorking Street Festival.

THERE are few more commercial subjects than children. Accordingly, it was no surprise that this near life-size Italian marble group of two children playing on a balcony (pictured right) by Donato Barcaglia, dating from the late 19th century stole the limelight at Christie’s King Street (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) 19th century furniture, sculpture, works of art and ceramics sale on September 30.

TWO or three times a year Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer's premium) offer a selection of modern pieces in their monthly Knightsbridge silver and objects of vertu sales. Undoubtedly a growth area of the market, works by major names such as Stuart Devlin, Gerald Benney and Christopher Lawrence routinely feature amongst the top ten lots.

CADOGAN Tate, the international packing, shipping and storage company, have announced that they have turned The Packing Shop into a profitable concern. They acquired the assets and goodwill of the antiques specialists just over a year ago.

JACK Vettriano (b.1951) is not an artist normally associated with the North East of England, but one of the lesser known facts about Britain’s Most Popular Artist is that one of his first one-man exhibitions, if not the first, was held at the Corrymella Scott Gallery in Jesmond, an upmarket suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1992.

AT 10.41 on the morning of August 25, 1875, to the sounds of Rule Britannia, Captain Matthew Webb emerged from the cold and choppy waters of the Channel. It had taken him 21 hours and 41 minutes. He had covered close to 40 miles. But he had become the first man to swim from English to French soil.

DUKE'S of Dorchester are opening a new auction room to allow them to improve their handling for house clearance and deceased estates among other services.

A COUPLE of exotic sleepers swelled the tally at Lays Auctions (15% buyer's premium) September 23-24 sale which also boasted healthy prices for more home-grown fare such as Troika and Newlyn copper.

NEXT year’s Watercolour and Drawings Fair will move to a new venue, the Royal Academy rooms at 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1, where it will run from February 3 to 6 with an opening evening preview on February 2.

RIGHT: the most desirable of the varied wares produced by the small ceramics factory established by Vilmos Zsolnay (1828-1900) in the southwest Hungarian town of Pecs are those created after the 1890s. It was then that Zsolnay perfected his iridescent Eosine glaze and employed his principal designer, Tade Sikorski.

ATTRACTING dealers from both sides of the Border to McTear's (15% buyer's premium) September 24 sale was a Regency figured maple and parcel gilt breakfast table.