Gloucestershire

A HEALTHY take-up for the 170 lots entered without reserve from a period farmhouse in Shropshire provided the backbone of Humberts' (10% buyer's premium) 602-lot Gloucestershire outing on June 29, but it was an early 18th century upholstered walnut wingback armchair consigned from a different private source that proved the star turn.

NOBODY is pretending that this year has all been sunshine and brightness for the trade, but nor has it been quite as terminally doom-laden as some commentators would suggest.

WITH rising interest rates, a fluctuating stock market, selective bidding and increasing competition for quality private consignments, now may not be thought to be the most prudent time for expansion but Wotton Auction Rooms (15% buyer's premium) have gone ahead with plans to build a larger saleroom within their existing premises. It will open next month.

A NEW auction house opening in Stroud in Gloucestershire is to hold its first sale on July 28. Stroud Auctions Ltd will be the first permanent auction house in the town.

CELEBRATING 15 years trading in their present premises, Anne and William Morris, who operate as Ruskin Decorative Arts, have a summer selling exhibition at 5 Talbot Court, Stow-on-the-Wold from July 17 to 25.

WITH its prevalence of antiques shops and auctioneers, one might imagine a degree of difficulty in locating a member of Cotswolds society untouched by the world of antiques.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

AS part of their 25th anniversary celebrations, The Cotswolds Antique Dealers Association are holding a selling exhibition from May 21 to 23 at the restored tithe barn in the gardens of Bourton House, Bourton-on-the-Hill, Gloucestershire.

THE importance of exercising due diligence has been driven home in the most painful way for a dealer, whose oversight has cost them £12,000.

QUALITY, rarity, condition, provenance and fashion all have a bearing on auction prices, but perhaps the most difficult criterion for any specialist to value is the appeal of an object’s quirkiness.

FURNITURE historian Bill Cotton and the Cotswold Antique Dealers Association (CADA) are among those participating in Chairs 2004, the first international chairmakers’ symposium. The new event will be held at the National Arboretum at Westonbirt, Tetbury from May 1-3.

THE Gloucestershire town of Tetbury is currently the boom city of the antiques trade. In addition to a host of antiques shops it has recently become known for its antiques centres, especially Top Banana who have two centres in the town.

THREE large Art Deco plaster panels, two details shown right, which had lain unseen and unloved in the basement of a London property for years, had an extraordinary appeal which eluded both their owners and cataloguers judging by their reception at Wotton Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium).

THE market for 19th century mahogany furniture remains, as Gloucestershire auctioneer Martin Lambert observed after Taylor & Fletcher, Humberts (10% buyer's premium) successful 455-lot mixed February 24 sale, extremely selective. But that is not a euphemism for moribund.

UK: Fraser Glennie Fine Arts, the auction arm of the Circencester-based surveyors and estate agents, are to join the Cotswold Auction Company.

The technique of Limoges enamelling, imitated by a number of historically-minded potteries in the second half of the 19th century, was championed at Worcester by Thomas Bott and then by his son Thomas John Bott.

A REMINDER that there is still some time to catch the 18 special exhibitions mounted by members of The Cotswolds Antique Dealers Association as part of their annual exhibitions fortnight, and this year to celebrate the association’s 25th anniversary. The shows are scheduled to close on October 25, but I am sure there will still be some exhibition items on sale after that date.

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.

BEFORE I am inundated with complaints that Cotswolds clock specialists Jeffrey Formby Antiques are not members of CADA (although they are members of BADA) I know they are not, but their selling exhibitions held over two weekends in October do neatly complement the CADA shows which do not include a clocks dealer.