Des Gallagher and Garth Arnold will launch the Belfast Titanic Antiques & Fine Art Fair on Sunday, December 8, at the Titanic Hotel, which now occupies buildings where draftsmen designed the liner in the early 1900s at the historic Harland & Wolff dockyard. The Drawing Offices were built in the late 1880s when the company was emerging as one of the leading shipbuilders.
Visitor numbers to the 22-dealer event are likely to be boosted by the 3000-plus Sunday footfall at the Titanic Museum beside the hotel.
The dealers mainly hail from Northern Ireland with five from the south.
Irish art is very popular and two galleries are exhibiting: the Stables Art Gallery in Portstewart and Original Irish Art in Kinsale.
The Irish connection continues with maps and antiquarian books, rare Irish coins and banknotes, furniture and linens.
“It’s early days but the aim is to get a quality vetted fair up and running,” Gallagher said.
In the afternoon of the fair a 70-lot auction will be held in aid of local charities. The star of this will be a decorative silver box with a £20,000 reserve, presented to John Miller Andrews, prime minister of Northern Ireland from 1940-43.
For more details contact Gallagher at des101@btinternet.com or call 07974 027596.
