Print Edition

BAMF chairman and new chief executive address LAPADA conference

The contribution of Britain’s ‘regional’ salerooms – defined here as those outside the big London four of Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams and Phillips – is frequently overlooked when figures demonstrating the size of the UK auction market for art and antiques are created.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Michael Todd is celebrating his 50th year in the business. At Bath Decorative Antiques Fair he offers a selection of 18th and 19th century items, folk art, samplers, naïve art and original painted furniture. He is based in Somerset.

Fighter pilot, antiques dealer, and lifelong bon vivant, Peter Foyle Hunwick (1934-2018) grew up in Foyle’s, a Sussex manor in Herstmonceaux, before attending RAF Cranwell.

The TEFAF Art Symposium 2018 will focus on collecting in the 21st century.

Here we ask the dealers who participated in ATG's Round Table discussion the reasons why they choose to stand at the fair and ask them to pick out a star item they are taking this year.

MADAM – Gavin Littaur’s comment (Letters, ATG No 2329) that “BAMF’s definition of ‘museum quality’ is exceedingly unhelpful” pulls its punches too much.

Sold at £6000 in a recent Scottish sale was an early golfing item. The 1839 edition of Rules of the Game of Golf adopted by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers shown below was still in the original wrappers and bore an 1852 ownership inscription of one Henry Wells.

Olivier Malingue launched his eponymous New Bond Street gallery in 2016 and has devoted its business to bringing older pieces into contemporary frameworks.

A fascinating archive of designs for Brunel’s Thames Tunnel sold at Bonhams was bought by a museum dedicated to the pioneering structure to form the centrepiece of a £4.5m expansion, it has been revealed.

Skilfully designed to catch salmon, fishing flies and lures hooked enthusiasts at Shropshire sporting specialist Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium) fishing sale which included the work of two great names in the angling lexicon.

TEFAF exhibitors give their views on where ‘the greatest art show on earth’ stands today and its future. Peter Crush reports on ATG's latest 'Round Table' discussion.

Made in Switzerland for the Turkish market, in the late 19th century this zarf (coffee cup), below, had endured some rough treatment over the years before appearing at the Shropshire rooms of Trevanion & Dean (19% buyer’s premium).

Printed in Mexico in 1787, but promoted as the first book in English printed west of the Mississippi, a slim work of just 14 leaves in contemporary paper wrappers called A Short Abridgment to Christian Doctrine was one of the rarer items offered in a recent California sale.

MADAM – The proper aim of all right-minded persons is to end ivory poaching. The irrelevant ‘ivory bill’ will not help.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including Frieze adding a new fair in Los Angeles and an export bar placed on a £1.5m watercolour by John Martin.

A hitherto unrecorded teapot attributed to a pioneering North American porcelain factory sold last week for a remarkable £460,000 (plus premium) at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury.

Galloway Antiques Fair’s next event takes place at Scone Palace, the Georgian Gothic historic house near Perth in Scotland.

MADAM – The article on Hannah Snell (Fairs & Markets, ATG No 2328) mentions etchings and 15 pages about her life and times.