South-east England

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.

SOME 100 lots of silver and plate at Amersham Auction Rooms' (15% buyer's premium) April 1 400-lot sale largely bore out the current perception of the market that wine-related items will sell in an otherwise moribund market.

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.

Despite the important nature of many items being sold to militaria and weapons specialists at the Marlow rooms of Bosleys (15% buyer's premium) on March 10, there were, as usual, a number of more domestic objects included.

THE unexceptional contents of a Scottish country house may have furnished Mallams (15% buyer's premium) April 28 304-lot outing with three-quarters of its entries, but it was the decorative, ornamental works from a variety of other private sources which provided many of the highlights.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

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.

OUTSTANDING single pieces may have been fairly thin on the ground in recent months at Mallams (15% buyer's premium), but a steady take-up of lots throughout the year, coupled with an increase in the volume of consignments and number of sales, meant that the Oxfordshire group as a whole posted a 24 per cent increase in turnover for the year ending March 2004.

A Prince’s Passion: The Life of the Royal Pavilion by Jessica Rutherford, published by the Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums. ISBN 0948723548 £14.99hb and available only from the Royal Pavilion shop in Brighton on 01273 292792. THIS is a delicious new history of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, a monument of staggering self-indulgence built by George IV, the first son of the 15 children born to King George III and Queen Charlotte.

Pictured right is a Fokker cylinder from a WWI German triplane that made £3600 at Bonhams Oxford (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale of arms and militaria on April 13.

LIKE a number of provincial houses, Surrey auctioneers Hamptons (15% buyer's premium) have adjusted to the increasingly polarised and selective buyers’ market by cherry-picking the most commercial consignments for their triannual fine sales.

THE quality-guaranteeing stamp of London cabinet-makers and retailers Edwards & Roberts was the key to the top seller at the 890-lot March 25-26 sale at Scarborough Perry Fine Arts (15% buyer's premium) that totalled £89,000.

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.

VAST, and certainly imposing, it will be impossible to miss the centrepiece of a selling exhibition The Cabinet & Other Notables which will be held at The Country Seat, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire from May 21 to June 11.

IN the centennial year of his birth in 1904, a provenance to George Formby came with the sale of a ukelele which sold for £1750 (estimate £100-150) at Gorringes Lewes sale on April 27. The C.F. Martin & Co. 3K lte ukelele was bought by Bernard Dyke, a past president of the George Formby Society. The uke came to sale via the vendor’s father, an Arthur Rank chairman in the late 30s/early 40s to whom George presented it at a film preview at a Rank cinema in Essex.

DESPITE the myriad complaints that there are too many fairs, still they keep coming, and here is another. From May 7 to 9 Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs launches her Oxford County Antiques Fair at Eynsham Hall, an 18th century Grade 11 listed manor house in 30 acres of parkland near Woodstock.

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.

POLICE are warning the trade to be on the alert after a gang stole £8000 worth of jewellery from Banbury Antique Centre on April 19.

STILL on the bargain front, Hampshire dealers Millers Antiques will slash 20 per cent off all stock to be offered at their annual Open Weekend Exhibition to be held from May 7 to 10 at their extensive premises at Netherbrook House, 86 Christchurch Road, Ringwood.

JOHN Varley Senior (1778-1842) was one of the most prolific watercolourists of his generation, exhibiting no fewer than 700 works at the Old Water Colour Society between 1805 and 1842.