At 109 Kensington Church Street, London W11, Simon Spero holds his 23rd annual exhibition of English and French Porcelain 1730-1780. The show celebrates 40 years since Mr Spero opened his first shop in Kentish Town, North London before moving to the Kensington showroom in 1981.
These have been 40 notable years, not just for Mr Spero but for the English ceramics trade, as is made clear in an introduction to this year's catalogue by Geoffrey Godden (illustrated catalogue available at £10, £12 outside UK).
In addition to dealing, Mr Spero has lectured widely, organised seminars and study days and written books - his sixth will be out next year. But he is primarily a dealer and he has assembled 49 pieces priced from £1500 to about £14,000 for this month's show. The 5 3/4in (15cm) Worcester cylindrical tankard, top right, transfer-printed with a profile of George III, c.1761-63, costs around £10,000. The exhibition reflects many of the aspects of English porcelain with which the dealer is most closely associated, including early polychrome Worcester and Vauxhall porcelain, and especially blue and white. He has found for this show 20 exceptional examples of blue and white porcelain representing 13 factories.
Not far away in Ladbroke Road, just off Notting Hill Gate, Liane Richards of Mercury Antiques, notches up 25 years of annual exhibitions of recent acquisitions and the standard has never been higher than this year.
As always, the show consists of British ceramics, both porcelain and earthenwares, made between c.1740 and 1835. There are about 50 specially chosen works in the exhibition priced from under £200 to around £8000. You can expect the normal big demand when the show opens its doors on the first day at 2pm.
One of the prize pieces is this 17 1/2in (44cm) high Worcester vase of rare square section, bottom right. Painted with the Fancy Bird in a Tree pattern, it is dated c.1758-60 and with a provenance of the Zorensky Collection it costs in the region of £7500.
