Fairs and Markets

Totalling £533,120, the Wingfield Digby collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain offered at Sotheby’s Olympia (20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 12 may not have been the highest grossing sale of the London Asian series but it fielded the fewest casualties and was full of the type of fresh-to-the-market provenanced material at low estimates which the trade crave.

WITH more than 1000 dealers spread over 101/2 acres few would argue with the claim of Atlantique City to be the world’s largest indoor antiques and collectables show.

NOW into its fourth year and an established favourite with very much its own following, The Original London Textiles, Vintage Fashion and Accessories Fair will be held this Sunday July 13 at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, London W6.

Rising early after a heavy night out and trawling through a muddy field with the local riff-raff may not sound like an ideal way to spend a Sunday morning. But, like thousands of Brits obsessed with car boot sales, the vendor of a William De Morgan charger in this sale had done just that to obtain his treasure.

NORFOLK fair organiser Liz Allport-Lomax has been in business as Lomax Antiques Fairs for nigh on 12 years and in that time has made the East Anglian fairs scene her own, wisely concentrating all her efforts on the area she knows and not straying too far from her home turf.

THIS weekend from July 11 to 13 Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to his top provincial venue, Tatton Park, near Knutsford for the 34th Cheshire Summer Antiques and Fine Art Fair.

DOUBTS over the second New York Fall Fair have been fuelled by a delay in publishing the list of exhibitors. In early June when he announced that the opening night preview party for the October 14 to 20 event at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York would benefit Manhattan’s Frick Collection, organiser Lorenzo Rudolf, vice-president of Florida-based International Fine Arts Expositions, promised a roster of 100 international dealers to be announced on July 1.

LOOKING for the next big thing in art? You can choose from over 350 hand-picked artists, in a variety of media, whose wares are on show this month at Fresh Art, at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London N1.

LAPADA chief executive John Newgas has revealed that a membership survey shows now is the time to review the association’s fairs programme. Mr Newgas had already set out changes in May after LAPADA and fair organisers Centrex failed to reach agreement on the future of the association’s January fair, spelling an end to the event at the NEC in Birmingham.

ONCE again Fran Foster of Centrex, the Birmingham NEC’s organising arm, has proved there is plenty of fair business in Scotland if the quality and mix of stock is right. Her fourth Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow, held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre from June 20 to 22, proved a success for the great majority of the 80 or so exhibitors and it was commented upon that this Scottish fair has outshone many events further south.

For many years now Stanway House, an outstanding Jaco-bean manor house at Winchcome, half way between Tewkesbury and Stow on the Wold in the heart of the Cotswolds countryside, has been the glorious setting for Cooper Antiques Fairs’ North Cotswolds Antiques Fair.

“Do you know, if a visitor spends two minutes at each stand at this fair it will take 111/2 hours to get around,” said one prominent dealer at Olympia on the penultimate day of the Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which was held at the West London exhibition halls from June 5 to 15. Actually, it would take a little over 13 hours, but no matter.

One of the highlights of the English porcelain section of Sotheby’s Olympia’s ceramics sale on July 3 will be a group of pieces from the celebrated Duke of Gloucester Service produced by the Worcester factory c.1775. The service is said to have been made for William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh and Earl of Connaught (1743-1805), younger brother of George III.

THE International Ceramics Fair and Seminar organised by Brian and Anna Haughton, is now a venerable institution. In its 22 years, it has established a worldwide reputation for top-notch English, Continental and Asian ceramics that are sold against a backdrop of a lecture series by leading specialists in their field that are enjoyed by serious collectors, museum curators and other academics.

INTEREST in modern design gathers apace and is reflected in the loan exhibition chosen for the first Antiques For Everyone – London fair, to be launched at Earls Court from August 14 to 17. The display showcases 1950s, ’60s and ’70s furniture and is mounted by Sevenoaks, Kent collector Michael Marks, who deals in modernist furniture as 20th Century Marks.

POSTCARD collecting is believed to be second only to philately as the world’s most popular collecting hobby so here is early warning of what is guaranteed to be a very popular event, The Picture Postcard Show 2003 which will be held at the Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster, London SW1 from August 27 to 30.

The Scottish Tourist Board has given Rait Antiques Centre a much-coveted three-star Tourist Shop Award under the Board’s Visitor Attraction Grading Scheme.

The combination of a single-owner collection in a specialist niche corner of the market with a not over-large and mostly market-fresh selection of realistically estimated material were the keys to the warm reception that greeted Sotheby’s (20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of Scientific instruments in their Olympia rooms on May 28. All bar 15 of the 155 lots, just short of 90 per cent (92 per cent by value) changed hands for a total of £262,350.

The future of the Barbican Antiques Centre in Plymouth seems all but secure with the current manager of the 50-dealer shop eager to take over when the freehold of the building is sold.

Russian Works of Art: Alongside the sale of Russian paintings in their Bond Street rooms on May 21, Sotheby’s also followed on the next day with a sale of Russian works of art at their Olympia rooms.