Art and antiques news from 2003

IN A month when keen collectors and scholars of glass – that ancient but sometimes-overlooked fraternity – are coming into the picture in a big way, glass dealer turned specialist fairs organiser Paul Bishop is holding his second Cambridge Glass Fair.

Two leading Kensington Church Street glass dealers are to hold their own selling show, describing it as “a ground-breaking exhibition shining a light on a hitherto unrecognised area of British cut glass”.

US: STAR lot in the Stair Galleries of New York State sale scheduled for September 6 is this set of 10 George III mahogany dining chairs (2 + 8) originally owned by The Rt. Hon. the Viscount Downe at Wykeham Abbey in Yorkshire.

The Stuart Sutcliffe archive received a lukewarm reception at Bonhams Knightsbridge, but Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) are hoping a stamp design by his famous art college friend, John Lennon, will generate more frenzied bidding in their 201-lot Rock ’n’ Roll and Film Memorabilia sale on September 24.

FOR 40 years, the Suffolk family concern Tudorose Ltd has been involved, directly or indirectly, with the antiques world. The operation is very much in line with current trends, for the company creates high-quality reproduction antique furniture, designs contemporary furniture, restores furniture and completely renovates interiors, among other things.

WELL-known Dutch Oriental specialists Vanderven & Vanderven are stalwarts of Maastricht, Basel Cultura and the Grosvenor House fairs, but their taste for international events has been sharpened of late.

As part of the on-going development of the Gazette website, antiquestradegazette.com is now asking users to log in when using the site. Access to the site and all its services from Lot Find to Price Guide remains free of charge.

Sotheby’s have acquired the inventory and reference library of H.P. Kraus, the venerable New York dealers in books and manuscripts, which they will sell in a series of auctions this autumn.

SAVILE Row suits will be swapped for shorts and shirts when dealers and auctioneers meet for a showdown on Friday. But saleroom rivalries will have nothing to do with it as lots make way for shots... at goal.

CULTURE secretary Tessa Jowell has extended her deadline for deciding on what sum the National Gallery should pay for The Madonna of the Pinks.

THE company appointed to administer the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price fixing settlement in Europe have apologised for the error on the compensation claim forms which has delayed the process. The Garden City Group, who sent out the forms last month, transcribed the compensation amounts in dollars rather than pounds sterling. The amounts were listed in the section of the form titled Pre-Printed Transactions Supplied by Christie’s and Sotheby’s.

MADRID organisers IFEMA stage what is arguably Spain’s top fair, Feriarte, at the Juan Carlos I Exhibition Centre in the Spanish capital from November 22 to 30.

FOR the second time, the crowded sporting calendar at the city’s Millennium Stadium has forced the Cardiff Antiques and Collectors Fair to relocate to nearby Cowbridge.

WITNEY specialist in fine period furniture David Harvey, head of W.R.Harvey & Co, was recently re-elected for a second term as mayor of the Oxfordshire town (having had one year out of office) but is not cutting down on his busy trading schedule, starting with manning his customary stand at the 97th Chelsea Antiques Fair from September 17 to 22.

Goldsmiths Hall, the home of the venerable City of London Livery Company, is the venue to check out the latest in contemporary silverware and jewellery next month. Billed as ”the Chelsea Flower Show of the silver and jewellery world” and celebrating its 21st anniversary, the fair will feature 90 exhibitors representing the cream of British talent from these fields with a wide range of work spanning cutting edge to more traditional designs.

WELL-established, and increasingly a summer favourite, the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair will be mounted by Cooper Antiques Fairs at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire this weekend from August 29 to 31. There are three Westonbirts a year but, with nigh-on 70 exhibitors, this is the biggest.

INCREASINGLY antique dealers make the crossover from being purveyors of fine, venerable objects of intrinsic quality to selling objects which are part of a whole look.

AN INTERESTING and historic show is coming up at London’s Plus One Plus Two Galleries, 161-163 Seymour Place, W1, from October 8 to November 1 when Classic Romantic Modern combines work from the 1930s designer Jean-Michel Frank with the accomplished contemporary architectural artist Carl Laubin.

FROM September 25-30 some 34 leading dealers from France, Italy, England, Sweden, Canada and the United States will gather at The Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue, New York City for the fourth International Art and Design Fair.

Though no direct relationship has yet been established, there are very obvious similarities between the manuscript map reproduced right and one of the more significant maps in American history, the engraved map, right lower, found in the History of the Expedition under the Commands of Captains Lewis and Clark... in 1804-06.