News


Categories

West Sussex


1645AR01D.jpg

Coalbrookdale firmly back on the ground

22 June 2004

OVER the years, the collaboration between Sotheby’s Sussex and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has done much to fill in the gaps left by the lack of detailed company records of Coalbrookdale furniture, and the May sale at Billingshurst, which featured 86 lots amassed over a number of years by a dealer/collector, offered another opportunity to assess the market.

Thieves make off with antiques from Uppark

22 June 2004

POLICE are investigating the theft of antiques valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from Uppark, the National Trust House in West Sussex, overnight on June 6-7.

On the origin of a couple of Austens

10 June 2004

BOUND in half calf gilt and marbled boards, the three-vol., 1813 second edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that sold for £4600 in a May 21 sale held by John Bellman of Billingshurst bore the pencil initials H.D. for Horace Darwin (Charles Darwin’s son) and his bookplates were to be found in a copy of the 1818, four-vol. first edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in a similar but less well-preserved binding that sold at £2500.

1643AR04H.jpg

Preview

09 June 2004

For 30 years, the props that have given authenticity to many of viewers’ beloved TV and movie costume dramas, have been supplied by West London specialists Period Props & Lighting.

Key to £6400 clock lies in Malta

26 May 2004

THE way a Maltese connection can lift the price of any item, from watercolours of Valletta to old oak chests, was in evidence at the April 30 sale held at Strides (15% buyer’s premium) of Chichester when this wall clock, right, was offered.

Eye-catching Orientals are Sussex highlights

26 May 2004

THE Orient provided the most eye-catching highlights at Rupert Toovey's (15% buyer's premium) March 17-19 sale, in the form of a set of four Japanese Satsuma plates signed by Kinkozan and an 18th century Chinese bamboo carving.

Same standards but new twist as Bailey goes back to college

20 May 2004

AFTER a five-year gap, Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to Seaford College for his 30th Petworth Antiques, Fine Art and Investment Fair. He had many successful years at the college near Petworth in West Sussex, then he took a break due to some difficulties over the venue. Now he is back in the college’s Robertson Centre.

That Lowry moment captured forever…

13 May 2004

COLLECTORS who love the art of L.S. Lowry but can only afford Helen Bradley (1900-1979) were presented with the picture of their dreams when this 11 by 14in (27 x 36cm) oil, right, of the momentous and inspirational meeting between Lowry and Bradley outside the 1955 Saddleworth Art Group’s Exhibition came up for sale at the Chichester rooms of Henry Adams (15% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Queen of the castle

05 May 2004

ONE of the pleasanter surprises on the fairs front last year was the immediate warm reception the trade gave to the launch of Antiques & Audacity, a new event organised by Gloucester-shire dealer Jan Hicks and staged in the grounds of Arundel Castle, West Sussex.

Pre-Raphaelite’s time has come...

15 April 2004

With a dozen works by the artist currently on show at Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibition, Sussex auctioneers John Nicholson (15% buyer’s premium) could hardly have picked a better time to offer a watercolour by George Price Boyce (1826-97) than at their March 17 sale in Fernhurst.

Silver still a Shaw thing

01 April 2004

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

Architect donates 600-work collection to Pallant gallery

23 March 2004

THE architect of the newly built British Library is to donate 600 art works collected over 50 years to the nation. Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson will hand over the gift to Pallant House Gallery in Chichester via the National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund), the UK’s leading independent art charity.

Hungarian ceramics return home

23 March 2004

Shown right are two highlights from the sale conducted by John Bellman (15% buyer’s premium) of Newpound, Wisborough Green, on February 18.

Treasuring publicity

16 March 2004

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.

Kangxi brushpot to Chinese taste

09 March 2004

This Kangxi period (1662-1722) blue and white porcelain brushwasher was a cut above other entries in Stride & Son’s (15% buyer’s premium) 1007-lot Chichester outing.

Intent on getting bigger

27 February 2004

FOR many dealers the surprise success of last year was the launch of the audaciously named fair Antiques and Audacity, which was held from May 16 to 18 in the grounds of Arundel Castle.

Concerning Pozzuoli, Kipling, Rupert Bear and Worzel Gummidge

24 October 2003

SEVEN HUNDRED or so lots were offered in the September 23 sale held by John Nicholson of Fernhurst, and though there were some disappointments – notably the 1776 volume of The Scots Magazine that contained the first Scottish printing of America’s Declaration of Independence, valued at £5000-8000 – almost 80 per cent of lots, big and small, found buyers.

Garden collection grows

09 October 2003

It might not look much, but the humble unglazed earthenware vessel, pictured right, is believed to be the earliest form of watering pot made in Britain. It’s also the precursor to the metal watering can that did not adopt its recognisable shape until the 17th century.

Did an earl help the £16,500 boat come in?

18 September 2003

The artist might have been unknown, the subject unconfirmed, but this unsigned 133/4 x 173/4in (35 x 45cm) Victorian oil, right, of figures on the deck of a yacht was nonetheless the most hotly contested lot at Stride & Son’s (15% buyer’s premium) August 29 sale in Chichester.

Room for provincial firms at country house sales in absence of London

31 July 2003

Taking it in their Stride’s... a £500,000 dispersal on the premises of Courtauld home: AFTER months, if not years, of a scarcity of on-the-premises house sales, this summer has seen the genuine article come the way of a number of provincial auctioneers, the latest being the sale of the contents of Cooke’s House in West Burton, near Pulborough, West Sussex held by Chichester auctioneers Stride’s.