London

MAYFAIR dealers in fine silver Marks have extensive showrooms at 49 Curzon Street, London W1 but you are just as likely to encounter Anthony Marks, who is head of the family firm, at swish fairs in Palm Beach, New York and, of course, London. Last week I caught up with him on preview day at Grosvenor House, where he made his debut last year, and he presented me with his latest catalogue, a glossy hardback selection of some of his current stock.

AS AT London auctioneers’ themed events, nationalist bidding also underpins demand at sales in Ireland and Scotland. The Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) report having “lots of private buyers and underbidders” at their May 23 Fine Paintings sale, despite the quantity of material being down on the equivalent sale last year owing to the gathering period conciding with the war in Iraq.

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.

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.

DURING the 19th century, flowers played a far greater role in everyday social life than they do today, with each flower being ascribed a particular meaning and messages being passed (particularly from men to women) via blooms.

VENERABLE top Mayfair dealers Partridge hold an exhibition of French clocks at their gallery at 144-146 New Bond Street, London W1 from June 12 to 28.

Christie’s South Kensington : May 15 was a crowded day in the Decorative Arts calendar. Both Christie’s South Kensington and Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms fielded sizeable decorative arts selections, much of it of crossover interest, which presumably presented potential buyers with something of a dilemma when it came to deciding which sale to attend in person.

Christie’s are to relocate their education arm from King Street to new premises in the Fitzrovia area of London. The current building, number 5 King Street that was the former Spink premises, will undergo refurbishment in the summer. While the upper floors are expected to remain Christie’s offices, a decision will be made in the near future as to the use of the prime retail space below.

Dealers on London’s Pimlico Road will learn shortly the results of their efforts to fight rent increases proposed by Grosvenor Estates. A meeting with landlords has been scheduled for June 9 with Grosvenor promising a “positive solution” to the issue. Presumably this will mean reversing earlier proposals to raise rents to £95 per square foot that came after rises from £43 to £65 imposed in December 2000.

JUNE is very much the traditional month for London’s high season in the art market. However, in the middle of May we had a taster of the frenzied auction activity usually associated with that month, a mini tsunami of high-flying sales with a clutch of dramatic and record-breaking prices.

“Mr Woilde, we ’ave come for tew take yew Where felons and criminals dwell: We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly For this is the Cadogan Hotel.” These lines by John Betjeman form part of a poem that marks one of the most notorious incidents in late Victorian society – The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.

OLYMPIA’s Fine Art and Antiques Fair has plenty to interest the decorators but they are guaranteed something eye-catching at the stand of Notting Hill dealers Jay Arenski and Peter Petrou, who have made the unusual and decorative their forte. In recent years the pair caused a stir with a bejewelled mummy case (complete with incumbent) and sold out their stand full of Black Forest furniture, which now graces ski lodges from Aspen to Gstaad.

Many Antiques Trade Gazette readers will be familiar with the name Francis Raeymaekers of ADC Heritage from his days as a dealer in antique silver. After a sojourn in New York, he is back in London with a new venture.

The Fulham end of the Kings Road in London is already a mecca for decorators with incumbents like Guinevere, Mora & Upham and Fergus Cochrane. They have now been joined by Bazaar Trading Co. at 568 King’s Road, SW6 who say they are offering something rather different.

SELDOM do niche fairs catch on so quickly as the splendid Hali Antique Carpet and Textile Art Fair, the sixth of which which will be held in its new location of Level One of Olympia 2 from June 5 to 8.

Clearly Tony Blair would be best advised to take round a bottle of Wooldings ’94, rather than Mouton ’89 the next time he pops over to the Palace for dinner. As has been widely reported in the media, the Prime Minister recently received half a case of Château Mouton-Rothschild’s 1989 vintage as a 50th birthday present from President Jacques Chirac.

HOPEFULLY with a host of international collectors and dealers in town for the fairs, there is business to be achieved back at the London shops, and a number of them will be mounting special selling exhibitions during June.

SHOWHOUSES in new housing developments are often a depressing, formulaic affair but this is not the case at the best designed showhouse in town at 20 Aubrey Square, a new residential development of 20 town houses at Campden Hill, Kensington, London W8.

AFTER three years at the Gateway Arcade in Upper Street, Islington, Modernist dealers David Tatham and Chris Reen have moved into a shop at 25 Camden Passage, N1 where they trade as Origin Modernism.

London’s main photograph auctions took place last week. The high point of the series came at Christie’s on May 20 in a single-owner evening auction of daguerreotypes by the French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, when this image of the Temple of Olympian Zeus on the Acropolis sold for £500,000, reckoned by the auctioneers to be a new auction high for a photograph.