South-east England

FOR some years now, the Thames Valley Antique Dealers Association has held two fairs a year, the autumn one at Radley College, Oxford and, for the past six years, the spring one at Reading Bluecoat School, Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire. The TVADA Spring Antiques Fair will take place at Reading Bluecoat from April 2 to 4 with a record 36 members taking stands.

ANTIQUES shops come and go (and plenty have gone in recent years) but some seem to trade on forever. It is 100 years since this little girl was photographed outside the bookshop at 7-8 Union Street, Brighton, right, where Dermot and Jill Palmer are now preparing to mark their 35th anniversary dealing in antiques from the premises.

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

Few pieces of Victorian jewellery have survived in such sparkling condition as this Kashmir sapphire and diamond necklace which sold at Dreweatt Neate’s Donnington Priory saleroom near Newbury last week for £240,000 (plus 15/10% premium) – the highest ever price for jewellery at a provincial saleroom.

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.

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

IT is always in the interest of auctioneers and the trade to talk the market up, but there does seem to be a general consensus among auctioneers that business this year so far has got off to a frisky start.

JUST two of the 600 or so lots that made up a March 2 sale of books and prints held by John Nicholson of Fernhurst, Surrey, managed four figure bids – a binding and a postcard album.

ALREADY a good day out for the public, there is increasing trade awareness of the Oxford Brocante, the third of which will be held on Sunday April 18 at the Randolph Hotel in Beaumont Street. With the emphasis very much on decorative works it also offers vintage fashion.

BUYERS may have been thin on the ground for the more routine furniture in this 712-lot Crow's, Dorking (10% buyer's premium) sale on February 25, but the four telephone lines booked for a Georgian Chippendale rectangular tilt-top occasional table ensured this would be a hotly contested entry.

On a day when early pieces took the top prices at Mallams (15% buyer's premium) sale on March 3, one of the earliest was this late 16th century Venetian bronze inkwell, right.

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.

The highlight of the sale conducted by Bourne End Auction Rooms (12% buyer’s premium) near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on March 4 was this pair of tin-glazed earthenware plates, right, made c.1740 by Saverio Grue at the Castelli factory in Naples.

IN addition to technical excellence, decorative appeal and early date, sentiment is an important player in the sampler market.

THESE are heady times for fairgoers, what with Maastricht, major events in New York and the BADA and Olympia in London. But life goes on, and thrives, nearer the all-important grass roots.

DEALERS are always looking out for a seriously undercatalogued lot and at Amersham Auction Rooms (15% buyer’s premium) on February 5 they found one.

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.

THERE was plenty to tempt toy collectors in the provinces in late January and early February with over 1000 wide-ranging lots catering to all tastes and offered in three different sales.

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.

THIS Oxfordshire outing at Holloways on 27 January not only boasted a bountiful supply of silver-mounted coconuts but included a great deal of other decorative entries and quality furniture consigned by the same local private vendor. Among these pieces was the sale highlight – a pair of Victorian ‘golden oak’ inverted breakfront library bookcases, well carved with lion’s masks and cartouche-moulded cornices.