UK

STRONG private interest from well beyond the local area meant the trade, drawn mainly from the North and across the Border but also including dealers from Kent and as far as Holland, faced stern competition at this 1100-lot Cumbrian sale at Mitchells on 6-7 December.

A large collection of theatrical, character costumes and accessories provided the Canterbury rooms with an out-of-the-ordinary offering which attracted surprisingly wide interest.

Tattered and blackened, possibly by fire, this pair of William IV Gillows mahogany library chairs had been consigned by a local restorer to Willingham Auctions, near Cambridge, for sale on December 29.

IT was apparent on the second day of the first major fair of the year, The LAPADA Antiques and Fine Art Fair which opened at Birmingham’s NEC on January 16, that there is no marked upturn in business following a despondent 2001.

FOR a long time now, Kent antique prints dealer Ingrid Nilson, who is a member of and director of LAPADA, has been a well-known figure in the antiques trade, but in recent years her highly decorative stock has been sought after by interior designers.

NEXT week the British fair, which some 17 years ago was the first to cater seriously for the home and, more importantly, the transatlantic decorative trade, opens in its marquee at Battersea Park.

THIS was the second sale for the West Midlands firm Fieldings Auctioneers who got off to a tough start by holding their first sale in October when the market was reacting to the September 11 attacks.

A new world record was set at Spink’s sale of Medals, Orders and Decorations (ODM) on December 10. The group of medals won by Air Vice-Marshal (as he became) “Johnnie” Johnson were sold for £241,500 (including premium).

LONDON: Three dealers exhibiting at the Spring Fine Art and Antiques Fair at Olympia in West London will hold a concurrent joint exhibition just two minutes’ walk away from the West London exhibition complex, with the object of pulling in the public and any decorators who are in town.

The third sale in Christie's South Kensington’s December toy triumvirate was their teddy bear and soft toy sale held on the 3rd of the month. The second of their biannual sales in this category, this was a sizeable offering at 319 lots and was well attended by a mix of collectors and dealers.

Bonhams are to sell the impressive collection of Minton ceramics from the Minton Museum, Stoke-on-Trent in their New Bond Street rooms this year. The collection will be dispersed in two instalments, with the first 400-lot dispersal scheduled for April 30.

Just the thing to lift the spirits in the cold, dark, stock-deprived days of winter, this spectacular whorl of a tropical centre table received a warm reception at the Salisbury salerooms of Woolley and Wallis on January 8.

LONDON: Mayfair’s Lefevre Gallery, a leading player on the London art scene since it was founded in 1926, is to close.

Blackamoor, Taunymoor, Suck a Bubby; Your Father’s a Cuckold, Your Mother told me ....not the most familiar of nursery rhymes, nor indeed one likely to find much favour in the present century, but that rhyme, illustrated right, is only one of 37 found in the second volume of Tom Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, many of which are much more familiar, if not always in quite the same form as we know them now.

A jewellery sale held by Sotheby’s on November 27 included a few exhibition and sale catalogues, plus a very rare and important work published in Moscow in 1925 by the People’s Commissariat of Finances.

The bird with the splendid hairdo pictured right is one of five original watercolours, possibly by Madam Knip herself, found in a special copy of Temminck & Knip’s Histoire naturelle des Pigeons of 1801-11 that sold for £30,000 to a private buyer at Christie’s November 28 sale.

Fresh supplies of quality antiques may be drying up but collectables such as antique advertising, pot lids and bottles show no sign of running out.

COUNTRYWIDE hints that there may be some lift to the general silver market got a further boost at this Staffordshire sale on 28-29 November at Wintertons where one of the main sections comprised 13 silver lots, of which 90 per cent sold to both trade and private bidders with Christmas in mind.

Good stock furniture dominated this dispersal at Crowe's Auction Gallery led by a Regency walnut foldover card table.

Thomas Webb was one of the two main British manufacturers to produce glass imitating rock crystal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and this 12in (30.5cm) high Marine vase is a substantial example of the type.