Art and antiques news from 2003

David Leach – 20th Century Ceramics by Emmanuel Cooper and Kathy Niblett, published by Richard Dennis Publications. ISBN 903685884 £25hb ISBN 0903685892 £20sb

IT’S not often that Britain recovers a highly important work from the United States – most of the traffic is usually the other way. However, Norfolk Museums Service are celebrating silver dealer Christopher Hartop’s triumph in negotiating the return of Sir Robert Walpole’s sterling silver tureen, which has now been put on show in the silver gallery at Norwich Castle.

ONE of the trade’s long-time favourite events, The Little Chelsea Antiques Fair, will be held at Chelsea Old Town Hall in the King’s Road, London SW3 on April 14 and 15.

FOR the fourth year the Oxfordshire specialist in sporting antiques Manfred Schotten and the London picture dealer Nick Potter have got together for a selling exhibition of golfing art and memorabilia, but for the first time this year the show, which runs until April 17, will be held at Mr Schotten’s shop in Burford.

Auctioneer Neil Freeman said that he could not remember a high price for multiple cased fish during his 20 years’ experience in the market for antique piscatoria. This 5ft 10in by 4ft 11in (1.78 x 1.50m) cabinet was one of a pair containing 15 brown trout caught by the ninth Earl of Coventry during a fruitful fly-fishing holiday in Ireland in 1879.

THIS Saturday sale was one of the series of dolls and toys specialist events extending the West Yorkshire auctioneers’ Andrew Harley's reputation in the niche market beyond the more frequent antiques events.

BUSY Norfolk organiser Liz Allport-Lomax has been quite quiet of late, having cancelled her February fixture at Norwich due to problematic parking. But Lomax Antiques Fairs are now back on the road with their first fair of the year, the third annual North Norfolk Fine Art and Antiques Fair at Sussex Barn, Burnham Market over the Easter weekend from April 19 to 21.

Topographical views of Valetta Harbour, Malta, continue to be one of the most solid performers in the salerooms. The latest quality example to turn up in the provinces was this signed Girolamo Gianni (1837-1887) oil on card, right, offered at the Chichester rooms of Stride’s (15% buyer’s premium) on February 28 with an estimate of £4000-6000.

“AS extreme as always with focused bidding on the key lots,” was Victorian specialist Grant Ford’s frank description of the selective response to Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) mid-season British Sale at Bond Street.

EARLY needlework specialist Maureen Morris has been appointed to the Board of LAPADA. She joined the country’s largest dealers’ association in 1991 and is already a member of the advisory board of the Olympia Fine Art and Antique Fairs.

For a Scottish antique, no provenance is more guaranteed to stir the blood than a connection, however tenuous, with a romantic outlaw. At Lyon & Turnbull’s sale on 26 March the link was Rob Roy McGregor, or at least the cattle rustler’s loyal kinsman and Glasgow magistrate Baillie Nicol Jarvie.

Artists’ Textiles in Britain 1945-1970: A Democratic Art, by Geoffrey Rayner, Richard Chamberlain and Anne-Marie Stapleton, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club in association with the Fine Arts Society/Target Gallery. ISBN 1851494324 £19.95sb

FELLOWS & Sons, the Birmingham-based firm of auctioneers and valuers, have started major expansion plans by opening a new 15,000 sq ft auction house in Great King Street, Hockley.

PORTOBELLO Antique Dealers Association are more confident of a positive outcome in the debate over licensing since meeting local council officers last week.

May 2003 will see the largest migration of antique dealers in Toronto’s history as the 25-year lease on the city’s Harbourfront Antique Market ends and the market’s 50 dealers move to two new homes in the heart of the city’s tourist and entertainment district.

A NEW guide to exporting cultural goods, to be distributed with next week’s Antiques Trade Gazette, aims to cut through red tape for the trade.

NEW YORK: EARLY sales at the exhibitions participating in New York’s Asia Week indicate that in this field at least business is very brisk indeed.

THE Antiques Trade Gazette has been named as Special Interest Newspaper of the Year in the 2003 Newspaper Awards.

Small is beautiful in the antiques world where miniature versions can command as much, sometimes more, than their full-size counterparts. That was certainly the case at Christie’s South Kensington last month when the small collection of miniature top hats and one bowler pictured above was pursued way beyond its £300-500 estimate to sell for £2400 (plus 17.5% per cent buyer’s premium) in the auctioneers’ March 12 costume and textiles sale.

Minton did majolica just a bit better than anyone else – not just in their large monumental and sculptural pieces but also in the smaller and more mundane wares.