Dealers

THE Royal Museum & Art Gallery of Canterbury have acquired a van Dyck portrait of one of the city’s most famous sons from one of London’s leading Old Master picture dealers.

WELL-KNOWN exhibitors at a number of fairs, the Northamptonshire restoration and retail business Aspidistra Antiques are planning to sell their shop in the small country town of Finedon, near Wellingborough, and move to France.

MOVING shop when leases expire, or for other reasons, is always stressful, but some moves are less traumatic than others.

ANTIQUES shops come and go (and plenty have gone in recent years) but some seem to trade on forever. It is 100 years since this little girl was photographed outside the bookshop at 7-8 Union Street, Brighton, right, where Dermot and Jill Palmer are now preparing to mark their 35th anniversary dealing in antiques from the premises.

WHATEVER the state of the antique silver market, West Sussex specialist Nicholas Shaw is constantly busy engendering business.

DANIELLA Luxembourg has launched her own private art dealership, Luxembourg Art, after selling her stake in auction house Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg to partner Simon de Pury.

POLICE are warning that a thief, fitting the description of a woman who stole from London antiques shops in January, has struck again.

FOUNDED in 1876, The Fine Art Society at 148 New Bond Street is one of London’s oldest and most innovative galleries and it has chosen a fascinating theme for its next exhibition, which opens on March 23 when the gallery gets back to business after two months renovation.

PROMOTION is the strong point of Richard Gardner, chairman of the Petworth Art and Antique Dealers’ Association, and he tells me the association is holding a Treasure Hunt on April 24. The prize actually is well worth winning, a nice antique silver-gilt caster.

WILTSHIRE ceramics specialist Andrew Dando has been mounting annual selling exhibitions for more than a decade and the tradition goes on in 2004.

THESE are heady times for fairgoers, what with Maastricht, major events in New York and the BADA and Olympia in London. But life goes on, and thrives, nearer the all-important grass roots.

PARTRIDGE of Bond Street have registered a 6.8 per cent rise in turnover for 2003, with a pre-tax profit of four per cent.

AFTER opening his gallery in the autumn of 2002 in the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street – a hive of Asian activity in New York at this time of year – Carlton Rochell enjoyed a major success last March with his inaugural exhibition of works from the Wesley and Carolyn Halpert Collection.

TAXES lost to the US government during the American side of the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing settlement can be retrieved by the British trade say the US company trading in auction house class action certificates.

BELIEVE it or not pinball wizards are not a louche product of the bars and cafes of the 1930s, they were active in the louche gaming dens of late 18th century Venice, as this fascinating and exceptionally rare Venetian gaming machine, known as a gioco delle biglie, testifies.

More than half of those of who responded to the latest LAPADA survey have reported a decrease in turnover in 2003. The annual survey sent out in December by the UK’s largest antiques dealer’s association, was this year completed by 158 members – 25 per cent of the association’s membership. Last year, it was 151 members, or 22 per cent, which indicates that the association has lost a net of 54 members – eight per cent – over the past year.

KENSINGTON ceramics dealer Garry Atkins holds his traditional annual exhibition of English pottery at his gallery at 107 Kensington Church Street, London W8 from March 9 to 20. There are 47 specially chosen items in the catalogue, which is free to those who attend the show or £8 by post.

WHAT a nice idea Mayfair dealers Windsor House Antiques have come up with for their March selling exhibition. In an area of London not renowned for its bargain prices, Windsor House, who have rather grand premises themselves, mount from March 3 to 14 a show entitled Antiques Under £5000.

NINE prominent London specialist dealers have joined forces to launch London Sculpture Week this June. In recent years a number of such initiatives have been launched successfully to focus attention on an area of expertise in the capital. With increasing interest in sculpture it was thought it was time to highlight London’s considerable credentials in this field.

AFTER a couple of years in the country, London dealer Alasdair Brown has returned to Chelsea and is preparing to dive back into the London trade melee.