London

Two new dealer shows, Kensington – The Heart of Ceramics and A Collector’s Paradise, herald in this year’s high summer art season in London, while Ceramics Mayfair continues to delight in Kent

A regular selling show in the summer calendar is Ceramics Mayfair which has been going strong for 11 years and features the combined forces of Jupiter Antiques, Mark and Sandra Diamond and Catherine Hunt.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Just as CDs and then downloads led to warnings of the demise of vinyl, the vintage camera collecting field was also predicted to be affected with the advancement of digital cameras. But both collecting fields are far from dead.

Inscriptions and/or dates add a premium in many classes of ceramics but especially so in delftware. Some afficionados such as the late Syd Levethan made this a particular goal for their collecting.

Following the glass and British ceramics auction, which takes place in Bonhams’ Knightsbridge rooms this week, the auction house holds its main European ceramics sale of the summer in New Bond Street on June 14.

Capital gears up for fairs which put it in the frame for dealing in both contemporary and older

The London Photograph Fair: Special Edition runs from May 20-21 and is a smaller, artsier version of the organisation’s quarterly fairs.

Daniel Levy opened his gallery, Daniel Raphael, in Church Street, Marylebone, earlier this year. The contemporary art gallery features the works of emerging and established artists. In the future he plans to increase his involvement in the fair scene.

Described as a building full of clues and symbolism created by its architects John Seely and Paul Paget, Eltham Palace was designed in 1933 for the vastly rich art collectors Virginia and Stephen Courtauld of textiles fame.

Before the poet Edward Lear sent the owl and the pussycat out to sea in a beautiful pea green boat in his 1867 poem, he combined them in this c.1846 watercolour.

Sold for £6000 in a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 30 was a copy of one of the earliest books on swimming.

More than 130 original artworks by the artist, sometimes savage political cartoonist and stage designer, Gerald Scarfe, were offered by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on April 5.