Indeed, as Brexit looms large and fewer than five months away, London’s magnetism as a place to buy and sell art has been key for trade bodies arguing the art market’s contribution to UK plc.
For journalists too, the metropolis provides rich pickings, not least because the city stages the UK’s most significant fairs and is where the largest auction houses and highest-end dealers conduct their trade.
Yet in Antiques Trade Gazette’s mission to deliver exclusive stories about special objects, we often find much fertile, less furrowed ground beyond London.
Witness the sale last week at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury of a major 19th and 20th century collection of jewellery, in front of a packed saleroom that vied with bidders online and via phone, with hammer prices exceeding estimates by a factor of five or 10 (see News).
ATG was represented there to follow the sale, as we will be at Birmingham’s NEC for the Antiques for Everyone fair next week (see Dealers' Diary) as dealers sell in the run-up to Christmas.
Other fairs and markets continue to provide a vibrancy to the antiques trade up and down the UK. In our Fairs & Markets section you’ll find news of forthcoming events from West Sussex to Scotland. Similarly, our UK fairs and UK auctions calendars provide a wealth of opportunity.
And when you wish to turn your attention even further afield our international auction calendars are now accompanied by previews.
In these ways ATG uniquely delivers the art and antiques market’s story to its readers. And we are always seeking to raise our game.
We’re putting objects front and centre on our redesigned cover, while online we now provide a Morning Briefing email every weekday to help you set your buying agenda (see antiquestradegazette.com/morningbriefing).
As part of our ongoing quest to improve what we provide to you, I am taking on a new, editor-at-large role that involves travelling around the country to source stories, news, opinion and record life at fairs, auctions and anywhere people buy and sell art and antiques.
ATG’s passion for great objects and the stories and people behind them is something I will be bringing with me on the road each week. I look forward to sharing what I discover with you.
Noelle McElhatton, ATG editor-at-large
