Art and antiques news from 2001

Bretby Art Pottery: A Collector’s Guide, by Michael David Ash, published by David Ash Publishing, 165 Station Street, Castle Gresley, Swadlincote, Derbyshire DE11 9JY. Tel: 01283 212390. www.bretbyartpottery.com ISBN 0954061306. £8pb plus £2.50 p&p.

When this walnut chair arrived at Shanklin Auction Rooms (10 per cent premium) on the Isle of Wight it was catalogued as Victorian and expected to fetch £400-600. However, specialist dealers who viewed it before the September 4 sale noted its clean, classical lines its ebony strung motifs and, most significantly, the wrap-around back.

The Loving Eye and the Skilful Hand: The Keswick School of Industrial Arts by Ian Bruce, published by Bookcase, 17 Castle Street, Carlisle CA3 8TP. Tel: 01228 544560. www.bookscumbria.com £30 hb (signed limited edition) £15 pb, both plus £ 2 p&p.

One unexpected result enlivened an otherwise unexceptional sale of Continental decorative arts held by Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) on September 13.

THE degree of demand for any type of ceramics can be gauged by the amount of damage buyers will tolerate – once it was only the rarest of early pieces where condition was not paramount, then this began to be true of 19th century majolica and now, apparently it is beginning to be the case when it comes to Moorcroft.

Scottish painting is, as we know, one of the stronger sectors of the UK art market, but William Page Atkinson Wells (1872-1923) is not one of its better known names.

FRANCE: New auction premises were inaugurated by Lelièvre-Maiche-Paris in Chartres, 55 miles south-west of Paris, at the start of September. Architect Philippe Redreau’s futuristic, hi-tech building, painted black to emphasize its sleek outlines, is situated in the suburb of Le Coudray, just off the Chartres rocade (ring-road) two miles south-west of the town centre.

USA: THE EVENTS of September 11 in New York had repercussions well beyond the city and its environs as antiques and collectables became a low priority for most Americans. Although most fairs did go ahead, a number were postoned or cancelled in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks and the effects on show schedules could stretch well into October and beyond.

“One of their less distinguished sales. There were one or two decent things, but there was no heavyweight stuff...an example of too many auctions of marine things with not enough stock to go round.” Such was the assessment of one leading West End specialist dealer of Bonhams & Brooks (15/10% buyer’s premium) September 5 sale of Marine Works of Art.

ISAAC WARE’S Complete Body of Architecture, a calf bound 1768 edition illustrated, or rather “adorned” with engraved plates of “...plans and elevations from original designs... in which are interspersed some designs of Inigo Jones”, was one of a small group of architectural books that brought most of the higher bids in this Bearne's sale on 21 August.

A clutch of Oriental entries were among the more interesting works in the Amersham Auction Rooms’ otherwise run-of-the-mill offering of 324 antiques and collectables on 2 August.

Themed series are all the rage in the salerooms these days. September 25-28 has been designated Travel Week by Christie’s King Street rooms and will be given over to a series of sales devoted to voyages, exploration and discovery.

Porcelain toys are the tiny versions of tablewares produced by ceramic factories alongside their standard size wares. The earliest 18th century examples, often less than an inch in height, were probably made to furnish dolls’ or baby houses, which were initially playthings for adults rather than children.

Pictured are two modern firsts, both in rather chipped jackets, from the book section of a September 7 sale held by Mallams of Oxford. P.G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Fred in Springtime of 1939 was sold for £100, while Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop of the previous year reached £210.

Sotheby’s annual jaunt north of the border to Gleneagles is as traditional to the Scottish leg of the ‘Season’ as the Oban ball and the first flexing of the Duke of Edinburgh’s trigger finger on the moors above Balmoral.

Good stock furniture attracted bidders to the first of these Staffordshire August sales on 15 August at Richard Wintertons, the best being a George III mahogany sofa table.

Waddesdon Manor, the Rothschilds’ country estate in Buckinghamshire, has come over all fashionable. The theme for their 2001 season is Art in Fashion. In the garden, the parterre has been given over to the talents of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who has designed two vibrantly coloured rainbow displays of carpet bedding.

Victoria Borwick, director of all fine art and antiques fairs at Olympia for the past eleven years, will leave the company after the November Fine Art and Antiques Fair. In a move which stunned the Trade, Mrs Borwick was told last week by Andrew Morris, the chief executive of Earls Court and Olympia, that her role as director of the fairs was redundant.

LONDON organisers Brian and Anna Haughton managed to clinch a deal with Sotheby’s late last week which will allow their New York flagship event, The International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show, to go ahead.

CHRISTOPHER Elwes, former managing director of Bonhams, and Indian art expert Patrick Bowring have broken new ground by opening India’s only specialist fine art auction house. They will hold their first sale in Delhi on November 5 and aim to create a network of offices to service the Indian market.