RARE JAZZ RECORDS ON SALE
G A R D E N S TAT U A R Y
2 0 T H - C E N T U RY A RT I S T S
ANTIQUE
COLLECTING IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ARTS & CRAFTS FURNITURE
AUGUST 2020
Bid for Success Avoiding the pitfalls of buying online
THE GENIUS OF THE FURNITURE DESIGNER EDWARD BARNSLEY BROUGHT INTO FOCUS
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
FOCUS ON: A GREAT DANE
Gray Matters
VOL 55 N0. 3 AUGUST 2020
THE ENDURING APPEAL OF GEORG JENSEN
Why everyone is talking about the Irish modernist Eileen Gray
18TH-CENTURY WRITING BOXES
Lifitng the lid on the most ingenious designs with their secret drawers and hidden compartments
ALSO INSIDE Valuing Chinese porcelain
• Sale results • Latest lockdown news
Inviting consignments to The Collector, Fine & Early Works of Art & Furniture
A fine 17th Century embroidery and stumpwork panel. ÂŁ1,500 - ÂŁ2,500
19 Charles Industrial Estate, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 5AH Tel: 01449 673088 Email: enquiries@bm-auctions.co.uk
www.bishopandmillerauctions.co.uk
FIRST WORD
IN THIS ISSUE
Welcome
At the time of writing, two days after the great liberation, things appear to be returning to normal (ish). (Who would ever have thought a trip to the pub would count as a civic duty?) I no longer have to queue to get onto the Ocado website, albeit the flour is still out of stock when I get there. Most auction houses are up and running and galleries and museums are starting to reopen their doors. So, how has it been for you? With a husband on the critically vulnerable list, other than dog walking and trips to the lockdown-acquired allotment, I am so far resisting the urge to head to the capital for the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ Titian at the National Gallery and staying put. But it doesn’t stop me from a) singlehandedly restarting the economy with my online shopping habit, with recent essentials including a doggy agility course and portable camping loo, and b) compiling a list of places to visit when fully released into the wild. Topping that list is the Cotswolds. Other than vicariously, via the Agatha Raisin novels of MC Beaton, I am ashamed to say I have never been. Articles in this month’s magazine: on the work of the Gloucester arts and crafts designer Edward Barnsley, Marc Allum’s childhood reminiscences of Snowshill Manor, not to mention Witney dealer David Harvey’s column, have all made me crave a visit to its honey-coloured villages. In this month’s issue we’re also heading off to the French riviera and the modernist villa E-1027 created by the Irish designer Eileen Gray, whose incredible life history is described on page 16, then visiting Copenhagen to walk in the footsteps of the silversmith Georg Jensen (whose designs feature on page 38). We may be encouraged to stay at home but can at least let our imaginations roam. Talking of lockdown, if you’ve spent the last few weeks bidding for lots online you will know that deciphering your sales receipt is on a par with understanding advanced algebra. Help is at hand. On page 4 , Mark Gilding presents his guide to the joys and perils of armchair collecting. Elsewhere, we explore antique garden statuary on page 48 and the collection of the British sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink is unveiled on page 36. Enjoy the issue.
HOLLY JOHNSON
on why Edward Barnsley is a 20th-century great, page 30
VICTOR FAUVELLE
unveils Dame Elisabeth Frink’s collection, page 36
MARK LITTLER
on the silversmith Georg Jensen’s appeal, page 38
Georgina
Georgina Wroe, Editor
KEEP IN TOUCH
Write to us at Antique Collecting, Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 4SD, or email magazine@accartbooks. com. Visit the website at www.antique-collecting.co.uk and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @AntiqueMag
Antique Collecting subscription
We love This set of late 19th-century German tole bookends, which has an estimate of £200-£300 at Woolley and Wallis’ sale on August 11
BILL FORREST
reveals easy ways to value Chinese porcelain, page 52
The Team Editor: Georgina Wroe, georgina. wroe@accartbooks.com Online Editor: Richard Ginger, richard.ginger@accartbooks.com Design: Philp Design, james@philpdesign.co.uk Advertising: Jo Lord 01394 389950, jo.lord@accartbooks.com Subscriptions: Sue Slee 01394 389957, sue.slee@accartbooks.com
£38 for 10 issues annually, no refund is available. ISSN: 0003-584X
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 3
MODERN BRITISH & 20TH CENTURY ART INCLUDING THE ESTATE OF DAME ELISABETH FRINK & LIN JAMMET
Wednesday 26th August 2020
ENQUIRIES Victor Fauvelle | +44 (0)1722 446961 | vf@woolleyandwallis.co.uk 5161 Castle Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP1 3SU
Lynn Chadwick CBE, RA (19142003)
w w w.wool l eyan d wa l l i s . co . u k
Si ng Woman III Numbered and dated c30 7/9 1986 Bronze 14.5cm high
*Visit woolleyandwallis.co.uk/buying for addi onal charges on final hammer price
Es mate £8,00012,000*
THIS MONTH
Contents
REGULARS
VOL 55 NO 3 AUG 2020
3
Editor’s Hello: Georgina Wroe introduces the issue, the first of the ‘new’ normal
58 Top of the Lots: A lifetime collection of jazz records goes under the hammer, along with an unusual gaming table
6
Antique News: With galleries and museums starting to reopen there is much to report on
61 Fairs Calendar: With lockdown easing, we reveal the fairs taking place this month
62 Auction Calendar: Online, timed 10 Your Letters: A selection from the and in the saleroom, discover the postbag including one correspondent auctions in August who corrects a correction chair 11 Subscription Offer: Save 33 per cent on an annual subscription and receive a free book worth £65 12 Around the Houses: All the latest from UK and US auction houses with a world record setting guitar and collection of New Hall porcelain
6 RARE JAZZ RECORDS ON SALE
G A R D E N S TAT U A R Y
2 0 T H - C E N T U RY A RT I S T S
ANTIQUE
COLLECTING
25 An Auctioneer’s Lot: Charles Hanson is stopped in his tracks by the collection of Winston Churchill’s chauffeur
AUGUST 2020
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ARTS & CRAFTS FURNITURE
Bid for Success Avoiding the pitfalls of buying online
THE GENIUS OF THE FURNITURE DESIGNER EDWARD BARNSLEY BROUGHT INTO FOCUS
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
FOCUS ON: GREAT DANE
Gray Matters
VOL 55 N0. 3 AUGUST 2020
THE ENDURING APPEAL OF GEORG JENSEN
Why everyone is talking about the Irish modernist Eileen Gray
34 Cool and Collectable: In the year marking the 250th-anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, Paul Fraser looks at poets’ memorabilia
18TH-CENTURY WRITING BOXES
Lifitng the lid on the most ingenious designs with their secret drawers and hidden compartments
ALSO INSIDE Valuing Chinese porcelain
22 Waxing Lyrical: David Harvey puts campaign writing boxes and their ingenious makers in the collecting spotlight
• Sale results • Latest lockdown news
COVER
Open for business – the showroom of Tetbury dealer Brownrigg Interiors and Decorative Antiques, brownrigg-interiors.co.uk
FOLLOW US @AntiqueMag
12
48
FEATURES 16 Gray Matters: A look at the work of the Irish-born modernist designer Eileen Gray whose genius has been sadly overlooked 26 Natural Bedfellows: The careers of 20th-century artists Charles Mahoney and Dorothy Bishop are brought to life by their daughter 30 King Edward: Edward Barnsley the son of arts and crafts designer Sidney Barnsley is put in the spotlight by specialist dealer Holly Johnson
38 By Georg! The silver of the Danish designer Georg Jensen 36 Saleroom Spotlight: The collection is greatly sought after by of the sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink collectors. Mark Littler reports goes under the hammer this month in Wiltshire 42 Bidding Online Q&A: With 45 Why I Collect: Venezuelan collector Randall Salas has been collecting signed covers of Time and Newsweek since he was a boy 56 Book Offers: Discover the latest savings to be made on books from our sister publisher ACC Art Books
52 16
66 Marc My Words: Antiques Roadshow favourite Marc Allum on the importance the Cotswolds had on his career
armchair buying soaring, Mark Gilding reveals the pleasures and pitfalls of buying online 48 Gardeners’ World: Lockdown has made us fall in love with our outdoor spaces, James Rylands presents the in-vogue antique statuary and ornaments 52 Short and Sweet: The reign of the Yongzheng emperor lasted only 13 years but sparked huge artistic endeavour, writes Sam Howard
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NEWS All the latest
Basque in glory
WHAT’S GOING ON IN AUGUST
The National Gallery has bought a portrait by one of Spain’s foremost Impressionists, which can been viewed online. It is the first painting by Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) acquired by the gallery following its exhibition on the artist last year. The Drunkard, Zarauz (El Borracho, Zarauz), (1910) is Interior of Sir Michael Smurfit’s a large-scale sketch, rapidly private residence, showing portraits executed in situ as Sorolla by Sir William Orpen trolled the taverns of Zarauz in the Basque Country. Born in Valencia in 1863, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida became a world famous painter during his lifetime, Below left A hallway in Sir thanks to a technique that Michael Smurfit’s private merged traditional Spanish residence, with portraits painting with the dazzling by Sir William Orpen play of sunlight. Bottom left Louis le Gallery director, Dr Brocquy, Travelling Gabriele Finaldi, said: Woman with Newspaper, “Sorolla’s brushstroke and has an estimate of the confident, sketch-like £700,000-£1m handling reveal him at his Below Sir John Lavery, dazzling best.”
ANTIQUE news With many events on hold, there’s still a lot to discover this August. Keep up to date with all the latest at www.antique-collecting.co.uk
IRISH EYES Irish businessman Michael Smurfit is to sell artwork estimated at £5.3m across a series of sales at Sotheby’s. Smurfit’s 30-year collection of international and Irish artworks includes pieces by Jack B Yeats, John Lavery and William Orpen. Some 19 works from the collection, with a combined low pre-sale estimate of £2.6m, will headline Sotheby’s Irish Art sale in London next month, preceded by a public exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin from August 27-20. In a recent interview with Sotheby’s about the collection, Smurfit said: “At the start I had little and knew even less. I hadn’t very much of a clue, then slowly but surely I became interested in art, primarily through my first wife (Norma Smurfit) and then the late Tony Ryan of Ryanair, who was a great friend. Tony had a superb eye for Irish art, and he got me interested in other Irish painters too.” The collection is headlined by Louis le Brocquy’s Travelling Woman with Newspaper , from the artist’s Tinker series, which represents one of the first modernist works of Irish art.
6 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Tennis under the Orange Trees, estimated at £300,000-£500,000 in next month’s sale
Above Sorrola’s The Drunkard, Zarauz (El Borracho, Zarauz), (1910)
Right Before it closed
the exhibition received 85,000 visitors in a month
Far left Titian (ac. 1506,
died 1576) The Rape of Europa, 1559–62, oil on canvas © Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Above left Titian Diana and Callisto, 15569, oil on canvas, © The National Gallery London / The National Galleries of Scotland Left Titian, Danaë, about 1551–l, oil on canvas, Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London © Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust
1
Extended run
On March 18, three days after opening its oncein-a- exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death on, the National Gallery closed its doors. Now the groundbreaking exhibition has extended its run to October after the gallery reopened on July 8. The exhibition brings together the artist’s epic series of large-scale mythological paintings, known as the ‘poesie’, in its entirety for the first time since the late 16th century. From the original cycle of six paintings, the exhibition reunites Danaë (from the Wellington Collection, Apsley House); Venus and Adonis (from the Prado, Madrid); Diana and Callisto (jointly owned by the National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland ; and the recently conserved The Rape of Europa from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. The exhibition can still be explored online, visit www.nationalgallery.org.uk
3
to see in
AUGUST
2
Baroque rolls
With European galleries opening ahead of their UK counterparts there’s a chance to see some Baroque masterpieces at Rijksmuseum. The national museum of the Netherlands reopened to the public in June with its muchcelebrated exhibition Caravaggio-Bernini. Baroque in Rome , originally scheduled to close on 7 June, extended to September 13. The exhibition sees more than 70 masterpieces by Caravaggio, Bernini and their contemporaries on loan from museums and private collections around the world. In the first decades of the 17th century a new generation of artists, led by the Caravaggio and the sculptor Bernini, shook Rome from its classical slumber to introduce the dynamism of the groundbreaking baroque movement. Tickets must be bought in advance from the museum’s website www.rijksmuseum.nl
Right Michelangelo
Merisi da Caravaggio, Narcissus, Gallerie Nazionali d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini
Below Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, Medusa, Rome, 1638–1640, Musei Capitolini, Palazzo dei Conservatori
Below left Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) The Spectacles Seller (Allegory of Sight), c. 1624, Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden Below Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606–69) Self-portrait in a cap, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, 1630, Ashmolean Museum
3
Youthful endeavour
Young Rembrandt, the first major UK exhibition to examine the artist’s early years, is set to reopen this month the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Looking at Rembrandt’s first decade of work, from 1624–34, the show charts his meteroric rise from his crude earliest known work, The Spectacles Seller to his first acknowledged masterpiece Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem just six years later. While an exact opening date is still to be set the exhibiton can be explored online at www.ashmolean.org
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, 1630, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 7
NEWS All the latest against the previous one, so the millennials who are now furnishing their homes are rebelling against their parents’ style.” Raised on IKEA and bare floorboards, this generation is looking to the cluttered rooms of previous eras for inspiration, he added. In the new look toile, chintz, plaid curtains and heavy upholstery feature strongly, alongside ruffles, pleats, and fringes. It’s great news for collectors. As has been predicted in this magazine, any resurgence in traditional interiors will spark a boom in value-formoney antique furniture.
EASTERN PROMISE A new book, Japan: Courts and Culture, has been released to accompany an exhibition of the same name at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, at a date to be confirmed. The book recounts three centuries of diplomatic, artistic and cultural exchange between Britain and Japan. Highlights include samurai armour sent by Shōgun Tokugawa Hidetada to James I. Japan: Courts and Culture, published by Royal Collection Trust is priced £35 at www.rct.uk/ shop Above Iwai Yozaemon, armour,
c.1610. Sent to James I by Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada in 1613. Royal Collection Trust / ©Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020 Below Kyoto (porcelain),
1700-75. Probably acquired by George IV. Royal Collection Trust / ©Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020
Left Return to the ‘80s, The Home of an Eccentric Man wallpaper by Mind the Gap Below Pachamama coral wallpaper and peach fringed
lampshade by Tatie Lou
Gran’s the word Just when you thought minimalism would never die, a new interior trend appears – based on the design aesthetic of your grandmother’s living room. Known as ‘grandmillennial’ style, it is the antidote to mid-century modern and sees a return to chintz. Designer Kevin Isbell, said: “Each generation rebels
Quick fire questions with... PHILIP MAGGS, THE NEW HEAD OF FINE ART AT SUSSEX AUCTIONEERS JOHN NICHOLSON’S
How did you start in the trade?
Working as a porter in a saleroom during university holidays – believe it or not at John Nicholson’s. I then spent more than 20 years as the buyer and agent for two international art galleries specialising in British and European paintings from the 18th-20th century, before returning to where it all began in Sussex..
Your most exciting find?
A post-impressionist work by Jelka Rosen (18681935), a German artist and the wife of the composer Frederick Delius. Although she was not a full-time artist she was a close friend of Paul Gauguin and many other prominent painters of the time. When I first viewed the painting I wasn’t sure who it was by, but the quality was striking and after much research I established it to be her. The scene was of the countryside around Grez-sur-Loing, near Fontainebleau, where she lived with Delius.
8 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Who is your favourite artist (we’ve heard of)? John Constable (1776-1837). After much research I have built up a real picture of who he was.
Your favourite artist (we haven’t heard of)?
The Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931). The National Gallery’s exhibition of his work a couple of years ago featured his paintings of Lake Keitele. He was fascinated by the landscape of his native country and, in 1904, he spent the summer by Lake Keitele, in central Finland, painting its scenic shores bathed in northern light.
Do you collect anything/ anyone?
Scandinavian paintings from the early 20th century.
What would be your ideal Sussex find?
An Ivon Hitchens’ (1893-1979) view near Petworth (the Sussex village he moved to after his London home was bombed in 1940), or a Constable sketch of Fittleworth. At one point Suffolk-born Constable lived in Brighton, produc n many work while he was in the Petworth area, including locations around Fittleworth. His Fittleworth sketchbooks are in the V&A. I could happily live with either the Hitchens or Constable.
Smoking hot
CSI MIDLANDS A series of lockdown inspired webinars, including one by an award-winning forensic jeweller, is continuing at a Birmingham auction house. Fellows Auctioneers is hosting the online sessions, which have previously included a presentation by Dr Maria Maclennan Ph.D. on how jewellery can assist crime and disaster investigations. The webinair explored how gemstones and precious metals’ ability to withstand high temperature, extreme impact and immersion in water, allows them to provide essential pointers follow ng an air crash or natural disaster. High-end timepieces have serial numbers, allowing their owners to be traced or identified. Others in the hour-long series have included a zoom presentation on arts and crafts buildings by the architectural historian and consultant Oliver Gerrish and a talk on the history of horology by watchmaker Dr Rebecca Struthers. Meanwhile saleroom staff donned their own forensic outfits as they made saleroom viewings safe for members of the public. MD, Stephen Whittaker, said: “All employees now wear gloves and mask with stocks in place to provide them for all our visiting customers.” The webinars are available to buy for £3, email hello@fellows.co.uk for more details or visit www.fellows.co.uk Above Staff don their own protective outfits Below Dr Maria Maclennan, image Alan
Richardson courtesy The Times
The artist Walter Sickert’s (1860-1942) role in teaching Winston Churchill to paint is explored in a pair of letters on sale from Peter Harrington Rare Books. Churchill met Sickert in 1927 through his wife Clementine, whose family had first encountered the painter when wintering in Dieppe in 1900. Sickert advised Churchill on art styles and, during a stay at Chartwell in 1927, shared his en camaïeu technique, (painting using layers of colour), which the artist later used on a portrait of the politician. Sickert also taught Churchill the panafieu technique of painting over a black and white photographic image projected on canvas. A signed two-page letter to Sickert written by Churchill at his Chartwell home, dated September 20, 1927 and a two-page letter of condolence from
Clementine to the artist’s widow Thérèse, written on Downing Street stationery and dated January 24, 1942 are priced £17,500 from the London dealer.
Above right Sickert’s 1927 portrait of his friend Winston Churchill using the en camaieu technique Above The letter from Winston Churchill to the artist Walter Sickert
ROVERS’ RETURN
Above Range Rovers will also feature at the two-day Land Rover show
A rescheduled event to mark the 50th-anniversary of the Range Rover takes place this month at the British Motor Museum on August 1-2. The Gaydon Land Rover Show celebrates half a century of the iconic marque, with displays of the car’s development over four generations and technical talks in the museum workshop. Examples will include 1970 Velars, special anniversary models, limitededition cars and an emergency vehicle collection. Get more details at www. britishmotormuseum.co.uk
Badge of honour Captain Tom, the former British Army officer who raised more than £30m for the NHS in the run-up to his 100th birthday, is now able to wear all his medals together. While Sir Tom was recently reunited with his previously lost Defence medal, he was not able to wear it alongside his other WWII gongs until a London auction house stepped in. Spink’s medal specialist Robert Wilde-Evans arranged for his medals to be re-mounted, adding the Defence medal in its correct position between the Burma Star and War medal. The style of mounting was also changed from ‘ordinary’ to ‘court’. The latter is worn by soldiers of the Yorkshire Regiment, the present-day descendants of Captain Tom’s former unit, the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. Above Spink also remounted Sir Tom’s miniature medals adding the Knight Bachelor’s Badge
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 9
LETTERS Have your say
Your Letters
April pp.53-63:Layout 1
17/3/17
14:08
Page 63
Our star letter
receives a copy of Bulgari Treasures of Rome by Vincent Meylan worth £55. Write to us at Antique Collecting, Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 4SD or email magazine@ accartbooks.com
r Stater let
The first sentence of a recent article on Chinese books (May issue Pressing Matters) refers to the new collecting categories appearing in the Chinese art market. With this in mind, may I suggest Chinese snuff bottles? There are some very nice examples around, with the world record set at more than £1m. They come in all sorts of materials including jade, glass porcelain and amber with many painted very interestingly inside. Bob Copley, by email
Discover why lockdown is not as bad as a trip to the South Pole ANTIQUES CENTRES and one reader corrects a correction chair Recent months have been difficult for us all. Thankfully, I’ve brightened my evenings reading my Antique Collecting magazines. In the May edition (Three to See online) I found out how to virtually view Queen Mary’s doll’s house. The detail in each room is amazing. Viewing this work of art online is a joy to behold. Well done Royal Collection Trust and thank you Antique Collecting for writing about it. Mary Mulligan, by email
Above right A 19th-century
glass snuff bottle, Chinese
Right In comparison to the experience of the crew of the Terra Nova, lockdown is easy
(The editor writes: Many thanks for your suggestion, we welcome ideas from readers, email magazine@accartbooks.com)
10 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Rutland The
ARMS
Lockdown has made us do many things we’d probably rather not: Left Mary explored Queen cutting my husband’s hair and Mary’s doll’s house online. decluttering the loft are two that Image © Royal Collection Trust / Her Majesty Queen spring to mind. During the latter I came across a battered book by Elizabeth II, 2020 Apsley Cherry-Garrard whose name Below The chair wrongly struck a chord not just because it is stated as a correction so unusual, but May’s issue (Around chair the Houses) featured the sale of a Below left A real correction set of his watercolours. The book chair (as corrected by is a vivid account of the young Janusz) explorer’s part in Scott’s ill-fated Terra Bill Forrest’s antiques quiz (May issue The Armchair Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1910-13. It’s a tale of Collector) was fun. However, the chair identified in grit and perseverance and really brought home the fact question 10 is not a correction chair, but simply a child’s that lockdown is not that bad. high chair. I attach an image of a correction chair (also B. Markson (Mrs), by email known as a deportment chair). It was reputed to have been designed in the 1830s by Sir Astley Cooper (1768Be part of the conversation on Twitter 1841), who was a surgeon and anatomist. Whether he and Instagram @antiquemag did design or invent the chair is open to debate, but its tall straight back and small, narrow seat were said to prevent “fidgeting and slouching” and, apparently, to teach children to sit up straight. Correction has a double-meaning in this context. It was supposed to correct bad posture but it was also used, apparently, to correct (ie punish) a naughty school child who would be sent to sit on it. It would have been very uncomfortable to sit on for a prolonged period! The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood has one such chair. Janusz KarczewskiSlowikowski, Manchester, by email
ANTIQUES
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G A R D E N S TAT U A R Y
2 0 T H - C E N T U RY A RT I S T S
ANTIQUE
COLLECTING IN THE SPOTLIGHT
ARTS & CRAFTS FURNITURE
AUGUST 2020
Bid for Success Avoiding the pitfalls
of buying online
THE GENIUS OF THE FURNITURE DESIGNER EDWARD BARNSLEY BROUGHT INTO FOCUS
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
FOCUS ON: GREAT DANE
Gray Matters
VOL 55 N0. 3 AUGUST 2020
THE ENDURING APPEAL OF GEORG JENSEN
Why everyone is talking about the Irish modernist Eileen Gray
18TH-CENTURY WRITING BOXES
Lifitng the lid on the most ingenious designs with their secret drawers and hidden compartments
ALSO INSIDE Valuing Chinese porcelain
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AUCTION Round up
AROUND the HOUSES
Coming out of lockdown, recent sales – including a 1950s puppet and a pinball machine – have a distinctly light-hearted feel The
fairground attraction, still in working order, was a sale highlight
The painting went to an American private collector
NICHOLSON’S, FERNHURST A painting by the French artist Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) sold for £21,600 at the Sussex auctioneers, more than double its low estimate of £10,000. Titled Figure Walking on a Tree Lined Country Road, the signed oil on canvas, which measure 50 x 61cm (19¾ x 24in), was inscribed on the back Andre Breton, Amicalement, Vlaminck. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, De Vlaminck is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who, from 1904 to 1908, were united in their use of intense colour.
CANTERBURY AUCTION GALLERIES
VICTOR MEE, DUBLIN An eclectic selection of pieces including pub fittings and advertising memorabilia sold for above their estimates at the Irish auctioneer’s sale marking the retirement of local dealer Gerard Derry. A hand-painted optician’s shop sign with its original bracket doubled its low estimate to fetch €540, while a 2m sun burst wall feature, expected to make up to €200 hammered at €1,500. But pride of place in the online sale, which recorded 1,500 bidders, was a rare 19th-century, hand-operated fairground carousel in working order. The Sight for attraction, which came with 18 hand-carved and sore eyes: the painted horses and two swing boats, fetched a optician’s sign mid-estimate €14,500. made €540
The decorative wall piece made 15 times its low estimate
12
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
A determined collector outbid seven dealers to pay £40,000 for a pair of small Blue John vases she’d only seen online at the Kent auction house’s recent sale, which recorded 1,600 online customers. The George III ormolu-mounted vases, estimated at £15,000-£25,000, were designed by the engineer and entrepreneur Matthew Boulton (1728-1809). Designed with reversible covers to double as candle holders or cassolettes – a vessel to hold perfume or incense – the pair, which were standing 20cm-21.5cm (7.5in-8.5in) high, were decorated with ormolu acanthus swags and leaf-capped loop handles above ram’s heads.
The sought-after vases came from the Kent home of a deceased London dealer
The bowl was once owned by Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942)
DIX NOONAN WEBB, MAYFAIR A silver dressing table pot once belonging to the French actress Sarah Bernhardt (18441923) sold for £3,968, against an estimate of £150-£200, at the London auction house’s recent sale. It was one of six pieces consigned by Sarah Bernhardt’s great-great granddaughter, Michele Gross, who lives in the UK. The highest price was for a locket which contained a lock of hair from Bernhardt’s son.
The table pot was monogrammed by the famous French actress
HALLS, SHREWSBURY A rare, early motorised bicycle sold for £3,200 against a low estimate of £800 at the Shropshire auctioneers. The 1902, 142cc Clément model B.B, stamped B.Bte SGDG, was fitted with a Bates saddle and had wheels of differing diameters. Clément Cycles or La Société des Vélocipédes Clément was a French bicycle manufacturer founded as a bicycle repair shop by the former racer Clément-Bayard.
WOOLLEY AND WALLIS, SALISBURY A 17th-century Venetianfooted bowl, made at the silica chalcedony, which once belonged The intricate to the Rothschild family, made 10 glass came from the times its estimate to hammer for same sale of pieces £3,000 at the Wiltshire auction from Exbury house’s recent sale. House The bowl’s provenance dated back to Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942) and came from Exbury House in Hampshire. A late 17th-century winged goblet, from either Venice or the Low Countries, sold for £8,500 against an estimate of £600-£800 from the same collection.
Clément Cycles pioneered the motorised bicycle
CATHERINE SOUTHON, BROMLEY A Welsh Ewenny pottery glazed earthenware figure of a parrot incised in Welsh Polly Fach Bert (Little Pretty Polly), sold for £850, more than eight times its low estimate of £100 at the Kent auction house’s online sale. The pottery was founded in 1610, making it one of the oldest in Wales. The bird was marked Jones Bridgend after Evan Jones, one of its best-known makers. An art deco 1930s penny slot game in an oak case made close to its top estimate, selling for £650 at the same sale.
The parrot was inscribed in Welsh Polly Fach Bert
The eye-catching ‘Playball’ pinball game had a penny slot
PHILLIPS, LONDON DESIGN
The desk set a record for the mid-century Milanese architect/ designer
A desk by Milanese architect and designer Mario Gottardi, sold for £91,250, setting a record and smashing pre-sale hopes of £10,000£15,000. The rare, 1945 executive desk, made from walnutveneered wood, walnut, glass and brass, had been designed for a lawyer’s office in Turin. The previous auction record for one of his pieces was in 2019 when a daybed sold for $9,500 in Italy. Three nesting tables by the Swiss artist Jean Dunand (1877–1942), one of the few Western artists to master the technique of lacquer, sold for £200,000 against an estimate of £120,000-£150,000. Dunand is widely considered to be one of the leading Western exponents of lacquer
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 13
AUCTION Round up SPECIAL AUCTION SERVICES, NEWBURY Six 19th-century marbles sold for £1,860 (against an estimate of £80-£120) at the Berkshire auctioneer’s sale of the contents of the London home of Joan Dunk – a stalwart of Portobello Road Antique Market. A set of early 19th century ‘flats’ depicting nine classical figures sold for £1,500 – against an estimate of £250-£350.
The sought-after flats made five times their low estimate
The marbles sold for £1,850 with the rarest being the top left
LOCKDALES, MARTLESHAM A 1912 cigarette card of an American boxer whose success in the ring sparked a race A kit for Aurora riot sold for £210, against a the Mad Barber sold for £440 (against a low estimate of £20 at the low estimate of Suffolk auctioneers. just £20) Jackson was the first The UK-produced African American cigarette cards are world heavyweight rare in the US. It boxing champion. sold to a Texan His victory over the bidder white boxer James J. Jeffries in 1910, dubbed “the fight of the century”, sparked race riots across America. The card, issued by Londonbased Cohen, Weenen & Co. as part of its famous boxers series, went to an online US bidder.
BISHOP & MILLER, STOWMARKET A pencil and wash drawing of a young girl fetched £720, against a low estimate of £90 at the Suffolk auctioneer’s recent picture sale. The artwork by Ralph Brown (1928-2013) was titled Girl in a Blue Dress and signed and dated 1985, with handwritten title label, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1987. The pencil Brown was better drawing featured known as a sculptor in the Summer who came to national Exhibition prominence in the late of 1987 1950s with his largescale bronze Meat Porters, commissioned for Harlow New Town in Essex.
14 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
JULIAN’S AUCTIONS, LOS ANGELES
Madonna’s dress sold for more than nine times its estimate of £16,000
A guitar owned by grunge artist Kurt Cobain set five word records when it sold for a staggering £4.84m in California. After the sale, Antique Collecting writer, and memorabilia specialist Paul Fraser, said: “It takes something special to surprise me these days. But when I saw this result I almost spat out my cornflakes. In all my years in the business, I’ve never seen the market for an artist move so quickly as Kurt Cobain’s.” His guitar from the 1993 Nirvana MTV Unplugged performance set five new world records as the world’s most expensive guitar, the most expensive acoustic guitar, the world’s most expensive Martin guitar, the most expensive piece of memorabilia and the world’s most expensive Nirvana memorabilia. At a previous sale the satin dress Madonna wore in her 1990 The guitar set five world Vogue video sold for records when it $179,200 (£145,000), sold for almost nine times its £4.84m original estimate.
ELSTOB & ELSTOB, RIPON A collection of 41 lots of New Hall porcelain, from the collection of the late dealer Tony Allen, sold for £11,190 at the North Yorkshire auction house. One of the stand-out pieces was a plate by Fidelle Duvivier, c.1787-90, purchased from Charnwood Antiques, which sold for a mid-estimate price of £2,400. A 1785 cream jug of ‘low Chelsea ewer’ form, purchased from Roderick Jellicoe, tripled its estimate to hammer at £900. New Hall holds an important place in the history of English porcelain. Active between 1781 and 1835, it was a cooperative between several Staffordshire earthenware makers, who were offered the use of the Bristol porcelain licence in return for financing a factory together.
David Elstob with the Tony Allen collection of New Hall porcelain
What’s it worth? Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers
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Contact clientservices@roseberys.co.uk with the details and images of your object to receive a complimentary valuation from one of our specialists.
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www.roseberys.co.uk 70/76 Knights Hill, London SE27 0JD | clientservices@roseberys.co.uk |+44 (0) 20 8761 2522
COLLECTING GUIDES Eileen Gray
Gray Matters With a major US exhibition on the pioneering modernist Eileen Gray on hold and plans to reopen her iconic villa E-1027 later this year, the Irish-born designer is finally being recognised
W
hen the Bard Graduate Center (BGC) in New York closed its doors in response to the Covid-19 pandemic it was less than two weeks into one of the most eagerly-awaited exhibitions of the year – a celebration of the Irish modernist designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878-1976). Following the easedown of the city’s lockdown the exhibition has been extended to October, with an exact re-opening date yet to be set. It is a similar story at E-1027, the Gray-designed modernist villa on the Côte d’Azur which is due to reopen later in the year following a €5m facelift. With both events on the horizon and almost 45 years after her death, it is a fitting time for Gray to be recognised alongside her friend and rival
16 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above Portrait of Eileen Gray, c. 1925. Silver gelatin print. National Museum of Ireland
Eileen Gray. Fauteuil Bibendum (Bibendum chair), c. 1927–1929. Wood, tubular steel, canvas. Galerie Jacques De Vos. Photograph Christian Baraja, Studio SLB
Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe. Despite her iconic Dragon chair holding the record for a piece of 20th-century decorative art (it sold for £22m in 2009) Gray’s name is unknown to many collectors. As BGC’s gallery director, Nina Stritzler-Levine, said: “Eileen Gray remains fundamentally underestimated or misunderstood by most critics and historians.” Once the toast of 1920s’ Paris, where she dressed as a man and had love affairs with men and women, Gray’s name fell into obscurity to such an extent that the French government only stepped in to save her Côte d’Azur villa because it contained murals by Le Corbusier. Among her many emblematic pieces are two chairs both very different in appearance but equal in their desirability: the sleek Transat and the curvaceous
Bibendum – named for the resemblance of its semicircular back and armrest to the Michelin Man. Equally sought after is her adjustable E 1027 side table, a ok o as t Transat table for which she became well known during her lifetime.
HIGH SOCIETY The independent and unconventional daughter of Irish landed gentry, Gray spent her childhood between her family home, Brownswood House, in Ireland, and the family’s residence in the South Kensington. In her early twenties she studied at the Slade School of Art, where she met artists Wyndham Lewis, Kathleen Bruce and Jessie Gavin. In 1900, following the death of her father and then her brother in the Boer War, Gray’s mother took her to Paris to see the Exposition Universale. Gray fell in love with the city and two years later moved there with her Slade pals Bruce and Gavin, becoming known as “Les trois jolies anglaises.” They enrolled at the Académie Colarossi before moving to the Académie Julian. When in London, Gray had long been captivated by lacquerware after seeing pieces in the V&A. She persuaded the lacquer restorer Dean Charles to take her on as an apprentice in his Soho studio. Now in Paris, she approached Seizo Sugawara, a penniless
Above Eileen Gray. Fauteuil transat (Transat chair), 1926-1929. Varnished sycamore, tubular steel, synthetic leather. © Centre Pompidou, Jean-Claude Planchet Right Eileen Gray.
Fauteuil transat (Transat chair) owned by the Maharaja of Indore, 1930. Lacquered wood, nickel-plated brass, leather, canvas. © 2014 Phillips Auctioneers Left Eileen Gray. Lamp, 1923. Lacquer wood, painted parchment shade (replacement), electrical parts. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Katherine Wetzel
Japanese student in his twenties who had gone to Paris to restore the lacquer pieces Japan had sent to the Exposition Universale, to teach her. Eventually, she mastered the pain-staking medium to near Eastern perfection. In 1910 she opened a lacquer workshop with Sugawara a few streets away from her apartment.
LE DESTIN
‘After the war, during which she drove an ambulance, she became part of Paris’s rich Bohemian life, being part of a creative lesbian subculture on the Left Bank’
Her devotion to the craft meant that by 1912 she was producing pieces for some of Paris’s richest clients. She continued to hone her lacquering skills on small pieces and panels but dreamed of creating a larger piece. After much searching, she was inspired by a drawing, reputed to be of a madman incarcerated in La Salpetrière hospital, to create the four-panel screen which she titled Le Destin and which made her name as an internationally-renowned artist. It depicts three figures, two youths, naked in blue and one apparently shrouded in grey. It was painstaking work for which she layered the screen with 20 coats of resin, applied in an atmosphere of running steam to create humidity. It was bought by Jacques Doucet who persuaded Gray to sign and date it 1913. It’s the only piece she ever signed. It made auction history 58 years later when bought by Yves Saint Laurent for $36,000. ANTIQUE COLLECTING 17
COLLECTING GUIDES Eileen Gray Left Eileen Gray’s coiffeuse aluminium et liège (Dressing cabinet in aluminum and cork), 1926-1929. Painted wood, aluminum sheets, cork, aluminum leaf. © Centre Pompidou, JeanClaude Planchet Below left The interior
of Gray’s commission for the Levy apartment, includes the Bibendum chair
Below One of the murals
painted by Le Corbusier adorns the wall of E-1027, image courtesy of Cap Moderne Association © Manuel Bougot
Bottom Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, E-1027, 1926-29 from L’Architecture Vivante, page 32. Centre Pompidou, Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Paris
LEFT BANK After WWI, during which she drove an ambulance, she became part of Paris’s rich Bohemian life, being part of a creative lesbian subculture on the Left Bank. She was often seen at the writer Natalie Barney’s salon where her circle included the American artist Romaine Brooks, the choreographer Gabrielle Bloch and her lover Loie Fuller, and the singer Damia who was Gray’s great love in the 1920s. Damia was the Edith Piaf of her day, a gravel-voiced nightclub chanteuse with whom Gray drove around Paris with Damia’s pet panther on the back seat of her MG. After the war, Eileen was commissioned to refurbish the L vy apartment at Rue de Lota. Madame Mathieu-Levy was the most successful milliner in Paris for whom Gray produced 450 lacquer blocks in the hallway; designed the Dragon armchair, the Bibendum chair and the Pirogue sofa where the media-savvy Madame Lévy was photographed for Harper’s Bazaar – which described the apartment as “ horoughly modern although there is much feeling for the antique.”
18 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
GALERIE JEAN DÉSERT In 1922, she opened her Paris shop, Galerie Jean Désert, at 217, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where she sold furniture and rugs. The gallery also served as an exhibition space for modern art, making Gray, albeit working under a male pseudonym, one of the first women gallerists. Gray’s rugs demonstrated her creativity with geometric forms, and by the early 1920s, she was designing furnishings in tubular metal and other modern materials. Thrilled with the new, she continued to push the boundaries of her own capabilities. Curator of the BG exhibition, Cloé Pitiot, said: “When something came on the market, like tubular metal or rhodoïd, she adopted it and imagined new things. She loved everything that allowed her to innovate. For me, she was like those adventurous women travellers and early aviatrixes. In the same spirit, Gray discovered new materials and created universes with them.”
MODERN LIVING A major turning point in Gray’s career came when she met Jean Badovici. Born in Bucharest in 1893, he studied architecture at L’Ecole Speciale d’Architecture and launched the L’Architecture Vivante , one of the first French magazines devoted to modern architecture. At the time, he was 28 and she was 43 and they soon became lovers. Badovici, a friend of Le Corbusier, encouraged Gray to consider architecture – a skill in which she became self taught. They collaborated on E-1027, the minimalist villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the South of France. The letter E stands for Eileen; 10 represents J (for Jean) deriving fro the 10th letter of the alphabet; 2 t B o o t G for Gray. Taking a little flat in nearby Roquebrune, Gray
A room inside E-1027, including a Bibendum chair and Transat chair, image courtesy of Cap Moderne Association © Manuel Bougot
E-1027’s facelift hired a mason and two assistants. For the next three years, she remained on or near the site seeing virtually no one for months on end, other than the locals who wandered down to see what the “mad Englishwoman” was doing. She designed 11 pieces of furniture specifically for E-1027, which included the Fauteuil transat (Transat chair), an adjustable side table, and a dressing table with pivoting drawers that lock when pushed back into place, only released by a small button on the back. Elsewhere, the open-plan living area had curved sofas, a round tubular glass-topped table and thick, soft Centimetre rug. In the bathroom, a large, nowiconic Satellite mirror, allowed Badovici to shave the back of his neck as well as his cheeks. In 1937, Le Corbusier visite for the first time and returned uninvited in 1938, covering the villa’s pristine white walls with nine erotic frescoes, which he painted while naked. Gray resented the addition which she considered an “act of vandalism”. She is said to have walked out of the villa when she saw the designs, never to return. In 1951 Le Corbusier built his famous seaside holiday cabin Cabanon nearby, where he was staying when he drowned in 1965.
Above Jean Badovici. Collection Renaud Barrès Top left Eileen Gray.
rawing for oudoir de Monte Carlo, 1923. Gouache, crayon. Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. ©MAD, Paris / Christophe Dellière Above left
o
o g o
o t t
t o t
Gray’s villa is set to reopen later in the year after a sixyear €5m facelift overseen by the English entrepreneur Michael Likierman, who was responsible for launching the first Habitat shop in Paris in 1972. However, while much has been ach ved, work on the house and fundraising have been riddled with Covid-19 delays, with a final €275,000 still to find. The money will help complete the finishing touches including Gray’s cork-top dining table (with built-in lights , her blue canvas sunbreak , as well as windscreens for the villa’s terraces. Lucy Woods, from the Cap Moderne Association which is renovating the villa, said: “Unfortunately, the path leading from the station of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin to the villa was washed away by the storms this winter. Therefore all heavy material has to be transported by helicopter at significant expense.” Anyone wishing to donate to the restoration should go to www.capmoderne.com/en/lieu/donation
o o to o got
‘Taking a little flat in Roquebrune, Gray hired a mason and two assistants. She saw hardly anyone for months on end, except for the locals who wandered down to see what the “mad Englishwoman” was doing’ ANTIQUE COLLECTING 19
COLLECTING GUIDES Eileen Gray Left A red Brick screen, from the early 1970s, sold for $478,000, image courtesy of Phillips Right Eileen Gray. Table à desservir de la salle à manger (Dining room serving table), 1926-29. Painted wood. © Centre Pompidou, Jean-Claude Planchet Below Eileen Gray.
Fauteuils (chairs) for Tempe a Pailla, c. 1935. Nickel-plated tubular steel and leather. © The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
Collecting Eileen Gray Collecting pieces by Eileen Gray is not for the fainthearted nor for people without large wallets. As curator Jennifer Goff has written, “Collectors vie to own her furniture; historians compete to document her life.” Gray rarely made more than a few of her designs. According to the Eileen Gray archives, only 12 Transat chairs, from 1927-30, were ever made. Today, only nine are known to have survived, two of them in museum collections (in Paris’s Centre Pompidou and the V&A). One, which had been in a private collection for 30 years after resurfacing in a flea market in the 1980s, sold for $8m at Christie’s New York in 2018. The chair was inspired by the deckchairs found on transatlantic ocean liners and conceived for use on the first-floor terrace of E-1027. It is a similar story when it comes to her Brick screens. In a etter to her niece, Prunella Clough, Gray claimed to have produced only 10 of them: an early black painted example; one in pale wood and two white painted examples, after which she produced her various lacquered versions, the majority in black. A one-off red screen, from the early 1970s, and bought directly from Gray in 1973, sold for $478,000 at Phillips New York in 2016. In the early 1970s, Gray worked with the Romanian-born British furniture designer Zeev Aram to introduce her designs to the world market and in 1973 she granted the worldwide rights to manufacture and distribute her designs to Aram Designs Ltd, London with a licence to produce designs going to ClassiCon of Germany. In 2015, Aram acted as consultant and donated furniture to the newly refurbished E-1027 House. A ClassiCon-made E-1027 adjustable table on the secondary market would cost between £500-£1,000, whereas a similar table ‘after Eileen Gray’ would set you back £100-£200.
20
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
FADE TO GRAY Never a self-promoter, Gray drifted out of the limelight in the 1930s. Interest in her work was revived in the early ’70s, however, when the estates of her early clients came to auction. In 1972, the auction of Gray’s client Jacques Doucet kick-started the art deco renaissance and, in 2009, Gray’s name dramatically resurfaced when her Dragon chair sold in Paris at the epic Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé auction for £22m, shattering the record for 20th-century design. Renewed interest flushed out hidden treasures, and the market for her work began to build. Exhibitions followed, including a career retrospective at the Pompidou Centre in 2013. With the exhibition at the BGC and the completed restoration of E-1027 it could be time to revisit Gray’s genius. The exhibition, Eileen Gray, organised by the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in collaboration with Bard Graduate Center, New York has been extended to October with the re-opening date yet to be determined. The centre’s website has a wealth of material to explore online. Go to www.bgu.bard.edu
Antique & Collectors’: 5 August Antique & Collectors’: 19 August Stamps, Books & Militaria: 20 August Movie Posters: 21 August The Tony Parker Collection: 26 August
EXPERT COMMENT David Harvey For centuries, secret compartments built into boxes and cabinets hid valuable possessions from prying eyes. It wasn’t until the start of the 19th century that the inclusion of these concealed hidey-holes and mechanisms became more of an art form and a true symbol of a box maker’s ability and ingenuity. This is one of the joys of the writing box. Secret compartments could be hidden anywhere in the box, under false floors, behind false walls and panels, dropping down, or from above drawers. iscovering the location of a possible hidden chamber is only half the task – one has to then figure out how to gain access. Spring-loaded walls and floors, hidden push buttons, slide-out floor and wall panels, false spring-loaded screw heads are just a few of the innovative methods that were used to reveal their whereabouts. These pieces give an intimate insight into the lives of their owners. As my late father used to say, “If only the pieces could talk, what tales they surely would tell!” The writing box dates to 1810 and would have accompanied its merchant owner on trips overseas
Waxing lyrical David Harvey lifts the lid on a set of 19th-century writing boxes, some of which were built to withstand great rigours as well as prying eyes
I
recently acquired a collection of four writing boxes dating from the first half of the 19th century. Each has its own varying features: some with histories and provenances, while others have names, engraved plaques and identifying notes. While it is common to call them Regency or campaign writing boxes, they would have been part of most well-to-do households, with the campaign versions robustly designed to accompany the owner anywhere, from into battle to far-flung regions of the Empire. At that time (unlike now) writing was an essential part of life, from correspondence with tradespeople to military instructions.
22 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Below left The Regency rosewood and brass inlaid box unopened Below The signature
of the box’s owner, Richard Stephens
Below right The box
opens to reveal a number of drawers and chambers
MARSALA MERCHANT Once in a blue moon a piece tells its own story, such as the box pictured (left). From the outside it presents as a Regency rosewood and brass inlaid correspondence box. But the secrets are all on the inside. It opens to reveal four drawers each with their original lion’s head ring handles and leather-lined slopes. The rising section, which is secured by two sliding bolts, can be raised and is supported by sprung side flaps. The superior slope opens on a false platform which can be removed to reveal a further void. The springloaded fascia is released by inserting a pin into the hole on the right hand, exposing three further small drawers. Inscribed at the bottom of the rising section is the name and address of the box’s orginal owner: Richard Stephens, 56 Gt Marelebone St, Port Land Place . Today, we would transcribe this as 56 Great Marylebone Street, Portland Place. Stephens was partner in th t import Marsala ine to London from Sicily with a warehouse in the City which would have been a short ride for him from his home. He was an astute Regency businessman by all accounts and, as the box dates from 1810, it would have accompanied him on o k trips abroad.
The box was owned by an inspector of hospitals for the East India Company The box, dating from the mid-19th century, may have been made in India
Toleware holder
CAMPAIGN TRAIL If you were part of the administration on the Indian sub-continent you would need the most robust box, generally made of hard and durable teak. Brass edging and inlays were also essential to protect the item. But these are not the only special features of the 19th-century teak and brass-bound campaign writing slope above. Inside, an embossed red baize back contains a concertina letter rack above a fully-fitted interior with a green gun cloth-lined, double-opening slope. The upper slope has a lock and key which opens to reveal a spring-loaded false front hiding three small drawers. The box is secured by an elaborate front lock, signed “Barron’s Patent”, which requires the depression of a metal pin to the right of the keyhole to release the hinged keyhole cover. The box belonged to James Strachan (whose name is revealed in part on the keyhole cover). Research shows he served in India in the 1830s. The Asiatic Register entry for The Adjutant General’s Office dated April 23,1832, states: “The following officers to accompany Commander in Chief on a tour of inspection and review through Centre and Mysore divisions: Col.R.B.Fearon, deputy adj-gen. King’s Troops; James Strachan, Esq., inspector general of hospitals. ”
LOCKSMITH’S BOX The rosewood-veneered box (right) dates to 1830 and is a particularly good example of a Regency mahogany and brass bound campaign writing box. The lock is signed “Turners Patented” and the plaque on the top with the inscription Matt J Turner . The Turner family of locksmiths was based in Wolverhampton and their lock was patented in 1798. The inscription on the plaque suggests the box could have been made for one of the same Midlands family. The writing slope provides clear evidence of the maker and has an interesting variation. he top of the rosewood box has two inset brass pinholes for the location of a book ledge, which is normally housed inside the box. The box has spaces for pens and ink bottles, two large compartments, one of which is lockable with a secret chamber housing two small drawers. The writing surface is leather lined. Inside, the left-hand rim has a hinged, adjustable stay in brass, ingen ously designed to keep the lid open for reading at the correct angle.
Above The teak and brass bound campaign writing slope has an embossed red baize back Below A series of locks
and pins are required to access the drawers
At 24in in width, this teak brass bound campaign writing box dates from the middle of the 19th century. Interestingly, the brass edging which would have run the length of the edges (for extra strength) has now yielded to brass corners and straps. At the time the box was made, teak was prevalent on the Indian sub-continent, which makes it likely it was made there with the locks and keys being imported from the UK. The box opens to a drop-down folio holder with a toleware day-by-day note holder in two parts flanking the original red ribbon letter holders. This is the only box I have ever come across with toleware holders. The main body has three replacement brass lidded ink pots. The gilt tooled, royal blue leather-lined flaps open to reveal a false spring-loaded front which is released to show three secret small drawers. The toleware day-by-day note holder is very rare
‘It wasn’t until the start of the 19th century that the inclusion of these secret, concealed compartments and mechanisms became more of an art form and a true symbol of a box maker’s ability and ingenuity’ Below The book ledge
is on the outside rather than inside
W R Harvey & Co (Antiques) Ltd, is based in Witney. Visit www.wrharvey.com for details.
Above The writing surface is leather lined Left The lock was patented by the Turner family of locksmiths
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 23
ac ad dec.indd 1
25/06/2020 01:00:49 PM
EXPERT COMMENT Churchill memorabilia
An Auctioneer’s Lot Churchill memorabilia, which once belonged to the wartime leader’s chauffeur, stops Charles Hanson in his tracks
T
reasures of the realm can turn up in the most unusual places – like a jigsaw box in a Derbyshire study. That’s where a fantastic historical archive was discovered in lockdown during a clear-out by a 60-year-old clerk on furlough. She picked up what she thought was one of her many old jigsaws, took off the lid and rediscovered a collection of ephemera she had saved from the tip more than 20 years ago. It was an archive that once belonged to Reginald Parker, the personal chauffer of Sir Winston Churchill during WWII. Alongside Churchill, Parker served four other British Prime Ministers, too, men whose names resonate through the turbulent decades from the mid1920s onwards.
Above Charles Hanson with the remarkable archive Above right Wartime papers include pick-up instructions relating to British prime ministers Above far right Reginald Parker in the 1940s Below Reginald Parker
in the 1940s
‘Fascinated by history, she recognised that the archive was special. When no one wanted it, she saved the papers from the skip, took it home and tucked it away in an old jigsaw box where it stayed for the next 20 years’
The archive includes post office telegraphs and correspondence between 10 Downing Street and the police on when and where the PM was to be picked up. One states: “The Prime Minister will arrive tomorrow by air at Hendon Aerodrome. Please have police car in readiness.” The archive, which came close to ending up in a skip, belonged to the owner’s mother-in-law’s partner, who may have been Reginald’s son. Their surnames match but she’s not certain whether the chauffeur was his uncle or father. After he passed away, she helped to clear his bungalow in the South Derbyshire village of Hilton in the late 1990s - and recalls that there was much to do. Sorting through the packed loft, she stumbled across the chauffeur’s archive in an old suitcase. Fascinated by history, she recognised that the archive was special. When no one wanted it, she saved the papers from the skip, took it home and tucked it away in an old jigsaw box where it stayed for the next 20 years.
FIVE PMS Reginald Parker, or Jimmy as he was known, lived in Buckinghamshire and was a chauffeur to five British prime ministers during a 24-year career which started in 1925 and ended when he retired at the age of 64 in 1949. As well as chauffeuring Sir Winston, he drove Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Clement Atlee. No doubt, they got to know each other well during their many journeys through London and beyond. It’s telling that one of the items in Reginald’s long-lost archive is a photo of Churchill with the iconic leader’s signature attached to it. I love discoveries like this, forgotten about treasures which are waiting for an auction to allow their story to be retold. Let’s hope this wonderful lot finds its way to a museum. The archive was due to go under the hammer at Hansons’ antiques and collectors sale from July 16-20 with an estimate of £250-£350. Find out what it made on our website www.antique-collecting.co.uk ANTIQUE COLLECTING 25
THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Unsung 20th-century artists
Natural BEDFELLOWS The love of nature shared by the artist Charles Mahoney and his wife Dorothy is celebrated in a new exhibition. Here, their daughter Elizabeth Bulkeley describes how the influential couple nearly never met
C
harles Mahoney (1903-1968) and Dorothy Bishop (1902-1984) were both teachers at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London when WWII broke out. Had the college not been evacuated from South Kensington to Ambleside in the Lake District in 1940, it is unlikely they would ever have met. In those days unwritten boundaries existed between the fine art department and the design school. Charles was a painting tutor, while Dorothy was in charge of calligraphy in the design school. With the outbreak of war, senior female teachers and men unable to take part in active service (having lost an eye in childhood, Charles was exempt) were part of the evacuated school. By the time their paths crossed in Cumbria both Charles and Dorothy were established artists in their own right. As well as a mutual attraction they greatly
26 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above Charles Mahoney (1903-1968) The Allotment, Wrotham, (detail) late 1930s, oil on panel Right Charles Mahoney (1903-1968) Sheet of studies of giant Sunflowers, ink and watercolour
valued each other’s professional abilities. Charles appreciated Dorothy’s warmth and charm, respecting her as someone at the top of her career. Dorothy admired his skill as a painter and muralist, and was impressed by his intellect.
EARLY DAYS Charles and Dorothy’s backgrounds were not dissimilar. Both came from impoverished, middle-class families. Charles’ father, William, was the son of a wealthy builder who lost his money, leaving his son no choice but to work as an untrained engineer. The family struggled and three of their seven children died
Left Charles Mahoney (1903-1968) View of Oak Cottage from the vegetable plot, oil on prepared board Right RCA students at the back of the Salutation Below right Charles
Mahoney (1903-1968) Ambleside, View from the Library Roof, c. 1942
in infancy. Charles rarely spoke about his childhood afflictions which included losing an eye in a tussle with his brother over some scissors. When he left school his parents sent him to work in a bank – a profession he hated. Luckily, money was found to allow him to attend Beckenham School of Art. Early portraits of family and friends showed his ability as a draftsman, which was developed later in his paintings and mural work, for which many studies were made in sketchbooks. In later life, he concentrated mainly on his plants, using different pens, washes, charcoal, or pencils to capture the essence of each. From Beckenham, he won a scholarship to the RCA under the principal, Sir William Rothenstein, and developed his love for mural painting. He returned to the RCA in 1927 as a painting tutor and, in 1928, was commissioned by Sir Joseph Duveen to paint the mural The Pleasures of Life for Morley College in Lambeth. It was his first major commission; but completely destroyed by a bomb in 1940. He was not able to discuss this, but it was a terrible blow.
DOROTHY BISHOP Dorothy was born in Wednesbury, in the industrial Midlands, the eldest of three children. She attended the local elementary school where she excelled at copying engravings. After leaving school, she worked in an office where she was so miserable her parents agreed to let her attend West Bromwich School of Art. There she won a scholarship to the RCA where she studied wood engraving, weaving, embroidery, book illustration, dress design, pottery and calligraphy. At the RCA she was taught by Edward Johnston, considered the father of modern calligraphy, who was so impressed by Dorothy’s skill he appointed the first-year pupil as his assistant, recognising her
WARTIME EVACUATION In the Lake District village of Ambleside, the RCA was accommodated in hotels, the Queen’s and Salutation. Charles served as both painting tutor and fire officer. Admiring the local slate roofs, he painted buildings rather than landscapes, and domestic scenes of their married lodgings featuring Dorothy working on her calligraphy, or heavily pregnant and trying to relax after a day’s teaching. Dorothy painted local wildflowers later used to illustrate a Wordsworth poem. fine calligraphic hand, with exceptional control and rhythm. She worked exquisitely on vellum, a capricious natural medium that requires expert handling.
CAMPION HALL MURALS Shortly after their marriage, in 1942, Charles was offered a commission to decorate the walls of the new Lutyens’ Lady Chapel at Campion Hall, Oxford. It was the RCA principal Sir William Rothenstein who put him forward for the job, describing him as “the best colourist he knew”. It was a major commission, which, divided by his teaching commitments, was to last several years.
‘In 1942, Charles was offered a commission to decorate the walls of the new Lutyens Lady Chapel at Campion Hall. It was the RCA principal Sir William Rothenstein who put him forward for the job, describing him as “the best colourist he knew”.’ ANTIQUE COLLECTING 27
THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Unsung 20th-century artists Left Charles Mahoney (1903-1968) View along Oak Cottage garden, c. 1940, oil on Windsor and Newton canvas board Below left The family was sent Norfolk turkeys by their patron Below right Charles
Mahoney (1903-1968) Miss Edith inspects the Sweetpeas, c. 1934, oil on paper
MOVE TO KENT Charles had purchased Oak Cottage, in the Kent village of Wrotham at the start of the war, as a home for his mother away from the London bombing. The house was cheap and in poor condition, and Charles carried out much of the renovation work himself. In the process his health (already compromised from childhood diptheria) deteriorated further. He enjoyed choosing secondhand furniture, while the walls were adorned by their friends’ paintings. Charles added a garden studio for himself, constructed from war-time ammunition cases. Elizabeth was born in 1944 and at the end of the war the couple started family life at the cottage. Dorothy, who had grown up in the industrial Midlands, was also enchanted by Oak Cottage. She decorated the home with ceramic ornaments and colourful woven fabrics, and created a workplace for herself in an upstairs room with a skylight to illuminate her desk.
LOVE OF NATURE Both Charles and Dorothy shared a great love of gardening and plants, both wild and cultivated. By creating a flower garden, studio and orchard, Charles generated his ideal landscape. He had a passion
CHRISTMAS CARDS
Dorothy was skilled in painting and drawing on vellum. After Christmas she would produce ‘turkey thankyous’ for the couple’s patron, Lord Cholmondeley, who sent them Norfolk turkeys from his estate at Houghton Hall. Dorothy spent much time on her ‘thankyous’, finding winter flowers and leaves for exceptionally beautiful cards. Unfortunately there is no record of what happened to this unique collection of her work. Drawings from life were made for all these works, and show the same exquisite detail that characterised all her work.
28 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
for garden flowers and he acquired an enchanting collection of plants. In growing plants for groundcover, choosing rare and statuesque perennials, from sunflowers to giant hemlock, and helping to reinstate the old shrub roses, Charles was ahead of his time. Dorothy admired his skill in creating such a unique garden and loved to make flower arrangements. She had a talent for painting in miniature on vellum, and painted the wild flowers she found on walks.
DOMESTIC LIFE To ensure a regular income, both Charles and Dorothy taught part-time, at the RCA until 1953 and then at Bromley, Maidstone and Woolwich Schools of Art for two or three days a week. Dorothy’s need to teach and look after the cottage meant that she did not produce as much work as other women calligraphers, who could either afford help or were not married. Most married women at that time were expected to put domestic and childcare roles before anything else. Charles was well aware of the difficulties faced by married women, and thought that, ideally, women artists should not marry to protect their professional careers. Yet his poor health meant that he had not the stamina to assist with the housework. Charles died in 1968 at the age of 64. Fortunately, Dorothy’s health was much more robust, and she was able to live at the cottage for a further 20 years. After ‘retirement’, aged 65, she taught two evening classes a week at the Stanhope Institute, Queen’s Square, London until she was in her late 70s. Her patience and professionalism lasted a lifetime, and even at the age of 80 she published the book The Craft of Calligraphy.
The GOLDEN COUPLE Paul Liss, from the gallery Liss Llewellyn, which specialises in the unsung heroines and heroes of British art from 1880 to 1980, considers the importance of Mahoney and Bishop
M
ahoney and Bishop were part of a golden generation of students (many of whom also became teachers) at the Royal College of Art (RCA) during the interwar years. Alongside the RCA artists that everyone has heard of, such as Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, John Piper and others, there was another group of exceptional artists including Mahoney, Barnett Freedman and Evelyn Dunbar who today are less well known. The reason for this is not always discernible. RCA principal, John Rothenstein, recalled in his memoirs that the two RCA students that most stuck in his mind in terms of genius were Henry Moore and Charles Mahoney. Who knows what posterity has in store for these less well-known artists? Many were every bit as highly regarded as their contemporaries in their own day, but have since disappeared from view. For instance, when Mahoney worked alongside Bawden and Ravilious on the Morley College murals his work was both larger and took centre stage. And though Ravilious today is more famous than Barnett Freedman, it was the latter who enjoyed a higher profile in his lifetime.
was recognised by her RCA tutor, Edward Johnston, as the only assistant he ever trusted.
RETURN TO NATURE
Above Gallery owner Paul Liss Below Dorothy Mahoney
(1902-1984) Walled Garden Amongst Kentish Orchards, early 1950s, mixed media on vellum
There may be one reason why the interwar artists, characterised by their love of nature, are experiencing a burst of popularity – the lockdown. A recent exhibition at the Garden Museum, which only ran for half its intended time, definitely struck a chord. It celebrated a group of artists who, between the wars gardened, taking their activities as plantsmen and plantswomen as seriously as they took their art. We have seen a similar turning back to nature in response to the current pandemic crisis today. Work by Charles Mahoney and Dorothy Bishop featured in the exhibition Sanctuary: ArtistGardeners 1919–1939 at the Garden Museum Lambeth, in partnership with Liss Llewellyn, can be viewed at www.gardenmuseum.org.uk and www.lissllewellyn.com. The couple is also one in an online series Artistic Couples, including Winifred Knights, (1899-1947) and Sir Thomas Monnington (1902-1976), which can be seen at www.modernbritishartgallery.com
RCA DOMINANCE In the early 20th century it was students at the Slade School of Fine Art (including Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, CRW Nevinson, Paul Nash and Dora Carrington) who were famously described by their professor of drawing, Henry Tooks, as a “crisis of brilliance”. In the 1920s, it was the RCA’s turn with what Nash, then a part-time tutor in the design school, referred to as “an outbreak of talent” to describe the remarkable collection of artists who studied there in 1923-1924. The women from this period, as with most artistic movements, have been more forgotten. The deficit this has produced is finally being addressed with, for instance, Evelyn Dunbar – who collaborated with Mahoney on a mural at a school in Brockley and, in 1936, co-produced the book Gardeners’ Choice – now receiving critical attention. Similarly, Dorothy Bishop has yet to be given the level of acknowledgement she deserves, despite the fact she
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 29
COLLECTING GUIDES Edward Barnsley Movement of which his furniture-making father Sidney and uncle Ernest were a vital part. Seven years before Edwards’ birth, both Sidney and Ernest and their friend Ernest Gimson left London to set up workshops in the Cotswolds, possibly advised on the location by William Morris. Like Morris, they saw in craftwork an antidote to the twin ills of the industrial revolution — shoddy goods and the devalued lives of the workers who made them. Morris and his Arts and Crafts followers didn’t effect a revolution in mass taste or noticeably improve the lot of the average factory hand. But, in a world in which people were increasingly divorced from the production of goods, they succeeded in reasserting the fundamental connection between hand, mind, heart, and the making of things. The trio moved to Ewen near Cirencester and then Pinbury Park. The nearest village to Pinbury was Sapperton, which still had a wheelwright.
SAPPERTON STUDIO At Sapperton, Sidney developed his carpentry skills. He made chests, cabinets and tables whose constructional details, cogged dovetails, dowels, and through tenons, were integral to the design. He combined rural carpentry techniques such as chamfering and chip carving with sophisticated carefully-proportioned designs.
KING
EDWARD
The clean lines of the Arts and Crafts’ maker Edward Barnsley makes his designs highly collectable today. Holly Johnson champions one of the Movement’s unsung heroes
C
ompared to the cost of commissioning a new piece of furniture today, the work of some of the finest proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement is surprisingly affordable – none more so than that of Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) whose workmanship is unparalleled. The reason for his skill is not difficult to discern. He was born into the Arts and Crafts
Above Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) an early oak chest of drawers, c. 1920, with panelling to the front drawers and carved D end handles. On sale for £14,000 Right Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) an oak refectory table on a wishbone base, c. 1940. On sale for £8,000 Left Dovetail joints reveal the level of craftsmanship
‘Edward increasingly developed his own style, combining his father’s influence with the elegant curves and fine inlay lines seen in the work of English furniture makers of the 18th century’ 30 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Left Edward Barnsley
t g for the Queen’s ilver ubilee in 1977 © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust Above Edward Barnsley
with the ubilee cabinet, c.1977 © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust Above right
At first an outbuilding was converted into a workshop with the three men working together. They relied on local woods such as oak, ash, elm and fruitwoods, much of it being supplied locally. The furniture they made was well crafted, robust and simple. They celebrated construction methods by exposing tenons and dovetails. The furniture was often decorated with simple chip carving, with Sidney Barnsley in particular finding success as a cabinetmaker with his bow-fronted dresser attracting considerable attention.
rare walnut side cabinet, c. 1947 Below Edward Barnsley
at the Froxfield Workshop, 1945, © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust
BARNSLEY THE YOUNGER Young Edward Barnsley would spend hours watching his father in his workshop, learning about tools and techniques but, despite his clear fascination – he made his first table at the age of six – his father advised his son not to go into furniture making, warning him he would never be able to make a living. His sister Grace, four years his senior, went to Birmingham School of Art and learned to decorate pots at Louise and Alfred Powell’s pottery before becoming a freelance painter for Wedgwood.
Left Edward Barnsley’s workshop in in 1936 1936,, © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust
COTSWOLDS STYLE A great example of Barnsley’s style is evident in this rare, walnut side cabinet, c. 1947 commissioned by the Bradford wool maker James Tankard. The sideboard is slightly splayed to the front and set with four drawers above four doors. The compartmentalised drawers are lined with green felt to protect valuables. It was part of a suite of furniture, including a dining suite and desk, that Edward made for Tankard’s newly-built house in the hills outside Skipton. Each piece has its original drawings, as well as being mentioned in letters between Edward and James Tankard. Such meticulous documentation was typical of Edward who detailed specifications of design and types of timber, as well as price. These records are essential for establishing provenance. Edward stamped some of his pieces, but much commissioned work was unmarked, especially that made for private clients. The Edward Barnsley Workshop retains many original drawings in its archives, again a valuable source for identifying his work. Both children were sent to Bedales, the progressive school near Petersfield in Hampshire, which encouraged practical skills and valued craftwork. Two of the buildings were designed by Ernest Gimson and there was much of the Cotswold School’s work on show. Not only was Edward immersed in his father’s wood-working at home, he was surrounded by it at school. And, despite his father’s warning, there was no doubt his future lay in furniture. In 1920, Edward went back to Hampshire to train as an apprentice at Geoffrey Lupton’s (an ex-pupil of Gimson’s) workshop in Froxfield. As well as making furniture, he worked with Lupton on the construction of a new library at Bedales, designed by Gimson under Sidney Barnsley’s supervision.
CHARLES SPOONER From 1922 to 1923 Edward went to the influential Central School of Arts and Crafts, established in 1896 by London County Council ‘to encourage the industrial application of decorative art’. Most of the first generation of staff was drawn from members of the Art Workers’ Guild and their practiceANTIQUE COLLECTING 31
COLLECTING GUIDES Edward Barnsley In 1931 Barnsley’s reputation heightened when he exhibited several pieces at the Royal Academy of Arts and Crafts exhibition. In 1945 he was awarded a CBE for his contribution to the quality of design and craftsmanship.
WORKSHOP EXPANSION
centred approach marked a distinct break from the drawing-based education offered elsewhere. Edward studied under architect and furniture-maker Charles Sydney Spooner (1862-1938) who was a life-long adherent to the political and aesthetic ideas of William Morris (he was also the cousin of Warden Spooner, of New College, Oxford, after whom “Spoonerisms” are named).
LUPTON’S WORKSHOP When Edward returned to Froxfield, Lupton stood back from furniture making and, in 1923, Edward took over the workshop. He began making furniture in the Cotswold style before adopting a more modernist approach. A number of pieces were made for architects, but he also produced lighter, veneered pieces for private commissions. Like his father, Edward favoured quality English wood, such as oak and walnut, which had been championed by the arts and crafts pioneers, but also used more exotic timbers such as rosewood, black bean and African mahogany. He looked for wood that featured rare or unusual figuring in the grain, which he would then highlight to make the finished pieces look like works of art. Like his father and uncle before him, Edward also exposed dovetails and tenons to showcase the skilled craftsmanship.
DAD’S HELP There is some evidence that Sidney Barnsley, then in his fifties and for whom furniture making was increasingly difficult, supported his son by passing on some of his designs. His presence is evidence in the commission of a dresser for C Victor Smith made in Edward Barnsley’s workshop which cost him £51 to produce (and, as prophesied by his father earlier in his career, failed to turn a profit). In a letter dated 1977, Edward recalled wages in 1924 averaged one shilling an hour. He wrote: “In 1924 I had not arrived at a realisation that I made no entry for overhead costs and, though this did not greatly matter when I myself was the maker, it was a serious loss when paying assistants!”
32 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) a mahogany chest of drawers, c. 1970. On sale for £6,000 Below Edward Barnsley
(1900-1987) an English walnut filing cabinet with sycamore stringing and ebony inlay, c. 1969. It was commissioned by the industrialist Sir Emmanuel Kaye (1914–1999). On sale for £3,500
The workshop urvived the difficult times of the Great Depression and the war years maintaining throughout the spirit of the Arts and Crafts Movement. After the war, the workshop expanded, but Edward did less cabinet work himself, preferring to concentrate on design, and leaving assistants to execute the work. He increasingly developed his own style, combining his father’s influence with the elegant curves and fine inlay lines seen in the work of English furniture makers of the 18th century. Until a late stage he resisted the use of machinery – believing it would remove the craftsman’s handwork which gave each piece its individuality – but around 1960 economic circumstances forced the introduction of some machine tools, which enabled corporate commissions to be obtained. While he continued to make the panelled and stiled work associated with the Cotswolds he also designed slender pieces using rosewood inlaid with sycamore. Barnsley was also assiduous in training apprentices to a high standard and his workshops were the source of many highly-regarded craftsmen. He succeeded Peter van der Waals as design adviser at Loughborough College, championing the tradition of Gimson and the Barnsleys to the next generations. In 1955 he was appointed to the advisory council for the V&A Museum. Still designing into his seventies, in 1971, Edward designed the Archbishop’s chair, prie-dieu and stool for Canterbury cathedral and, in 1977 he created the jubilee cabinet – a walnut fall-front lady’s writing cabinet – commissioned by Lord Reilly, for the Queen’s silver jubilee of that year. Holly Johnson, from Holly Johnson Antiques, specialises in rare, well-crafted furniture from specific designers and craftspeople. Following 30 years dealing at UK and international fairs she opened a two-storey showroom in Knutsford, Cheshire, for more details go to www.hollyjohnsonantiques.co.uk
Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) an African mahogany extendable dining table and 10 chairs strung with holly and ebony, c. 1956. It was made for the private dining room of the Appleby Frodingham steel works in Scunthorpe. On sale for £14,000
The Edward Barnsley Workshop today, © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust
THE WORKSHOP TODAY
Left Edward Barnsley (1900-1987) an early walnut mirror with ebony inlay, c. 1920, its receipt shows the original price was £12 12/Below The drawers are
compartmentalised and lined with green felt. It is stamped ‘Barnsley’ on the inside of the left drawer
An Edward Barnsley sideboard suits both traditional and modern interiors
The furniture making tradition continues at Froxfield with the Edward Barnsley Workshop creating high-quality pieces with meticulous attention to detail and sourcing the best materials. Continuing in Edward Barnsley’s tradition of training new craftspeople, the workshop takes on a number of apprentices every year. It also continues, as has been custom from the 1940s, to stamp furniture with the Barnsley mark either on the top edge of a drawer, the back of a piece, or on the underside of a chair rail, with makers also adding their own initials. One of its signature pieces is the Repose Mk III rocking chair designed by James Ryan for Masterpiece 2018. The chair is made from Hampshire oak, carefully seasoned in nearby drying sheds. James Ryan said: “Over many years I have refi ned the design of our wooden chairs to arrive at a back-shape which for most people offers comfortable support.” The workshop’s last open house of the year takes place on October 17. For more details go to www.barnsley-furniture.co.uk or visit the Edward Barnsley Workshop, Cockshott Lane, Froxfield, Petersfield, Hants GU32 1BB.
A rocking chair designed by James Ryan (b. 1972) made in the Barnsley Workshop, 2018, priced £28,000 © Edward Barnsley Educational Trust
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 33
MEMORABILIA Poets’ special two intriguing pieces of Wordsworth memorabilia. The first is a fragment of verse from Edmund Waller’s poem Old Age (“the soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d”). Wordsworth copied out the verse in his 60s, on a day he was feeling the weight of his years. The second is, as far as I’m aware, unique. It’s a philatelic cover, which Wordsworth sent on Christmas Eve to the postmistress of Kendal. Wordsworth served as distributor of stamps for Westmoreland for decades. It was a great source of contention with his fellow poets. They saw his acceptance of the king’s shilling as the ultimate betrayal.
Poet’s inspiration: daffodils in the Lake District with Tarn Hows in the background, image Shutterstock
Cool & Collectable
W
With 2020 marking the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, Paul Fraser considers the market for poets’ memorabilia
hat better time than Wordsworth’s anniversary to dive into the world of poetry? It’s a fairly niche area, with a small number of dedicated collectors. But, over the past two decades, some fascinating artefacts have come to auction.
LET’S START WITH WORDSWORTH The holy grail, when it comes to poets, is a snatch of verse in their own hand. It’s always elbows-out in the sale room on the rare occasions one of these manuscripts comes to auction. Wordsworth is in particular demand as he’s one of the UK’s favourite poets. The majority of his writing is to be found in museums and other institutions. However, in 2013 a draft copy of his sonnet To the Author’s Portrait achieved £13,000 in a sale at Bonhams in London. I have in stock
34 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Right Plath’s Hermes Model 3000 typewriter she used to write The Bell Jar sold for £32,500, image courtesy of Bonhams Below right Plath and Hughes had a tempestuous relationship, image courtesy of Bonhams Far right The book was published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, image courtesy of Bonhams Top right The risqué letters sold for £277,250, image courtesy of Sotheby’s
MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO KNOW Another popular choice for collectors is Lord Byron, whose swashbuckling life still makes for eye-opening reading today. In 2009, a set of letters from Byron to his friend the cleric Francis Hodgson sold for an incredible £277,250. The correspondence covers the years from 1808 to 1821 and includes references to poetry, religion and his countless love affairs.
Left Hughes’ poetry collection was dedicated to his wife Sylvia Plath, image courtesy of Bonhams
‘In 2018, Plath’s daughter Frieda Hughes consigned the green Hermes Model 3000 typewriter she used to write the book to a sale at Bonhams, where it realised £32,500.’ MODERN POETS
It doesn’t have to be old to sell. Modern poets are also in great demand. Sylvia Plath inspires real devotion among her readers. The most celebrated text in her canon is The Bell Jar – her sole novel. Plath published it under a psuedonym a year before her suicide. In 2018, Plath’s daughter, Frieda Hughes, consigned the green Hermes Model 3000 typewriter she used to write the book to a sale at Bonhams, where it realised £32,500. Also featured in the same sale was a copy of Plath’s husband Ted Hughes’ seminal poetry collection Lupercal (1960) with an inscription to Plath. It reads: “To Sylvia, its true mother, with all my love, Ted. February 25th 1960, 4th anniversary of St. Botolph’s”. The book sold for £15,625.
US WRITERS
The highest prices are set for American poets everything is bigger in America, after all. And you can’t talk about American poetry without mentioning Walt Whitman. His work revolutionised the form, influencing all those who followed. Whitman’s most celebrated work is Leaves of Grass. It remains a bestseller. In 2014, a rare first edition of Leaves of Grass achieved around £238,000 at Christie’s. Whitman published the book himself. It’s extremely rare as a result. Only 795 first-run copies were produced and few have survived. Another interesting curio relating to Whitman is an 1872 broadside that sold for almost £10,000
Above Neal Cassady’s legendary “Joan Anderson” 18-page letter to Jack Kerouac Top right Kerouac has a spellbinding effect on the American psyche Above right Kerouac’s On the Road was written on a 120-foot scroll over three weeks in April 1951, image courtesy of Christie’s Right Allen Ginsberg. As a student at Columbia University he was friends with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac – forming the core of the Beat generation
at Christie’s New York in 2019. Produced for display in bookstores, it advertises four of his most celebrated works in a 19th-century scrolling font. Don’t let these results scare you off. Fortunately for enthusiasts, poetry remains a fairly niche interest and competition is low outside of bigticket items. In fact, prices tend to be significantly lower than for novelists. It’s possible to own a signed copy of TS Eliot’s The Wasteland or Robert Frost’s Collected Poems (two of the most important American poetic works of the 20th century) for less than £2,000.
BEAT GENERATION
Top prices, however, are reserved for the Beats. Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and the like occupy a unique space in American mythology. Emerging out of the nation’s post-war boom, they blazed a trail for the counterculture. The hang-ups and taboos of previous generations were all grist to the mill. The Beats’ connection to the great cultural revolution of the 1960s makes them enormously popular. For collectors, they occupy the same space as figures like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendrix – three of the most sought-after figures in the world of memorabilia. Kerouac’s On the Road, famously written on a 120foot scroll over three weeks in April 1951, became the ur-text for a generation. The original scroll sold for $2.1m in 2001. While privately owned, it is shown in museums every now and then. But for me, the most interesting piece of Beats’ memorabilia ever to come to auction was Neal Cassady’s Far left Walt Whitman legendary “Joan Anderson” letter to Jack Kerouac. The (1819-1892), photograph by Mathew 18-page, stream-of-consciousness text was written Brady, 1866, image under the influence of speed. To Kerouac, it was a Shutterstock revelation and directly influenced his style. After a string Left An 1872 broadside of cancelled sales, it sold in March 2017 to Emory University in Atlanta for just over $200,000. for Whitman’s Leaves of Grass sold for almost £10,000 at Christie’s New York last year
Paul Fraser is the founder of Paul Fraser Collectibles, for more details go to www.paulfrasercollectibles.com ANTIQUE COLLECTING 35
ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER The Dame Elisabeth Frink collection
SALEROOM SPOTLIGHT The collection of one of Britain’s most iconic female sculptors is being sold in Salisbury, after spending 25 years undiscovered in a barn
N
ow being re-evaluated as one of this country’s most important post-war sculptors, paintings, ceramics and other artworks that inspired Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) are going under the hammer in Wiltshire this month. The collection, which was packed away in the mid1990s, only recently came to light, following the sudden death of her son and heir, Lin Jammet, in 2017. More than 100 lots of sculpture, paintings, studio ceramics and other artworks are to be sold at Woolley and Wallis on August 26, all of which had been on display at Woolland, Frink’s Dorset home and studio, where she lived from 1977 until her death in 1993. Many pieces were gifts or exchanges from her contemporaries, or works bought by Frink to support younger artists, or others who she greatly admired.
Guy Taplin (b. 1939) Mallard, painted wood with applied eyes, 35cm wide. It has an estimate of £800£1,200
36 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
BIRD DECOYS
Above The collection has been on display alongside Frink’s own work at her home, garden and studio in Dorset Above right More than
100 lots of sculpture, paintings, studio ceramics and other artworks are being sold at Woolley and Wallis on August 26
Above far right John Piper (1903-1992) large vase, probably thrown by Geoffrey Eastop, c.1971, 32cm high. It has an estimate of £800£1,200.
With estimates starting in the low hundreds and many pieces eclectic in nature, it is a perfect opportunity to start or add to a collection. Highlights include several Picasso ceramics from the Madoura Pottery from the 50s, as well as a handful of Frink prints in the sale, including one of Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren as Anthony and Cleopatra. Strongly featured are a number of carved birds by the Essex artist Guy Taplin (b. 1939) who was a friend of Frink’s. Also included in the sale is a selection of Aboriginal artworks acquired during and after a trip to Australia, which were instumental in causing a dramatic colour change in some of her standing sculptures in the 1960s and ‘70s. Woolley and Wallis’s design specialist, Michael Jeffery, said: “Discovering these pieces as they emerged from box after box was an incredible experience. It comes as no surprise that she had a very keen sculptural eye, and that can be seen in the form and colour of a lot of objects.”
THE ARTIST Despite being one of the few British sculptors of the post-war generation to sell for £1m at auction, Frink has been somewhat overlooked by British museum curators in the past 20 years until, that is, the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich unveiled an important retrospective of her work in 2019. She has since been reappraised as one of the most important British sculptors of the 20th century alongside other modern masters, most notably Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Auguste Rodin and Francis Bacon with whom she spent time in smoky bars (along with Lucien Freud) in bohemian ‘50s London. Frink was born in Great Thurlow, Suffolk, in 1930, and spent her formative years in war-time Britain (before being evacuated to Devon) living close to a
‘Frink has since been reappraised as one of the most important British sculptors of the 20th century alongside other modern masters, most notably Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Auguste Rodin and Francis Bacon’
AUCTION fact file
Suffolk airbase. Her father was a career soldier who had been evacuated from Dunkirk but the terror of growing up near a military target was to haunt Frink’s work. Her time in East Anglia, where she learned to ride at the age of four and hunt for food, sparked a lifelong love of the the countryside and nature. She studied at the Guildford School of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts) (1946–1949), and at the Chelsea School of Art (1949–1953) and was only 22 when she achieved her first commercial success. In 1952, the Tate purchased a work entitled Bird.
WHAT: The Elisabeth Frink collection, part of the modern British and 20th century art sale Where: Woolley and Wallis, 51-61 Castle Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 3SU and online When: August 26 Viewing: By appointment or online at www. woolleyandwallis. co.uk
We asked Woolley and Wallis’ paintings specialist, Victor Fauvelle, for his sale highlights How exciting is the collection?
Very, because it’s an insight into the mind of an iconic and much-loved British sculptor. These are pieces personal to Frink, which inspired her and were given to her by protégés and admirers. The collection has a number of works by female artists – perhaps an indication that Frink wanted to support them in the early part of their careers.
What will be seen as the sale highlights?
That’s difficult to judge because the collection is so varied, but there are good pieces by popular artists such as John Piper and Guy Taplin, and I think those will do well. There are also three ceramic panels designed by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) which are collected by art lovers the world over. Elisabeth Frink and the artists Mary Fedden (1915-2012) and Julian Trevelyan (1910-1988) were great friends, even holidaying together, and their work had much in common. The sale includes dedicated works by both Fedden and Trevelyan.
APOCALYPTIC THEMES Her early work had an apocalyptic flavour with themes including wounded birds and falling men. The relationship between humans and animals was also one she returned to throughout her life. In 1992, she said: “The horse has done so much for man, works for him, carries him into battle — and yet has retained its independence… it can in a flash transform everything by chucking him off.” This year, when many of her works of art and studio contents went into storage, Messums Wiltshire reconstructed Frink’s studio, after saving it from rack and ruin, within its 13th-century tithe barn near the town of Tisbury.
IN MY OPINION...
Do you have a personal highlight?
It would have to be a small driftwood sandling bird by Guy Taplin, sent to Elisabeth Frink as a Christmas card. It’s a simple piece of painted wood, just 14cm high and estimated at £400-£600. Above left Dame Elisabeth Frink (19301993) Water Buffalo, lithograph on paper and numbered 26 of 50. Produced for the World Wildlife Fund in 1984. It has an estimate of £500-£1,000 Above Elisabeth Frink in the garden outside her studio Far left An Aborignal
model of a bird, Tiwi Islands, Australia, wood with yellow, black and white pigment, 46.5cm high. It has an estimate of £200-£400
Where do you expect interest to come from?
There is a lot of variety in this collection. Obviously it’s of great fascination for anyone interested in Frink’s work to see the objects that inspired her, but it’s also an opportunity for any art lover to add to their collection, or for someone just looking for the right piece to enhance their home. The collection has an appeal for interior designers, collectors and art lovers from all over the world.
Two Canada geese wood decoys, painted, unsigned. The pair has an estimate of £150-£250
Left An Aboriginal model of a bird, Tiwi Islands, Australia, ironwood with white, red, black and yellow pigment, 79cm high. It has an estimate of £200-£400
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 37
COLLECTING GUIDES Georg Jensen silver
A detail from the art nouveau inspired Tureen 270 recreated in 2019 from rediscovered designs from Jensen’s archives. The whereabouts of the original tureen are unknown
By Georg! 85 years since his death, work by the Danish silversmith Georg Jensen has never been more popular writes Mark Littler
K
nown mostly for his jewellery, Georg Jensen (1866-1935) was one of the masters of the Danish art nouveau movement, epitomised in his 1905 design classic, the ‘blossom’ teapot, as well as his enduring grape range. During his relatively short life (he died at 65) he collaborated with pioneering designers to produce some of the most sought-after silverware of the 20th century.
KNIFE MAKER’S SON Jensen was born in Radvad, a small town north of Copenhagen, to a knife factory grinder and a housemaid. His family noticed his gift for creativity in the young Jensen who spent hours modelling sculptures
38 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above Jensen watches over a female silversmith in the 1920s Right A wine goblet of the ‘grape’ c. 1918. It reflects the art nouveau themes of curved lines and flora Far right A mid-century jug designed for Georg Jensen by Henning Koppel (1918-1981) know familiarly as the ‘pregnant duck’
at a nearby clay pool. At the age of 14, when the family moved to Copenhagen, Jensen become an apprentice goldsmith. His early passion for sculpting never really left and he continued to take classes in drawing and modelling until, in 1887, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts to study sculpture. In 1891, a piece of Jensen’s work was exhibited at an annual exhibition at the city’s Palace of Charlottenborg. Despite this auspicious start, Jensen had trouble earning a living as a sculptor. He could not depend on his family for money, and his financial responsibilities were increased by early marriage and fatherhood. Thus began a series of design jobs with poor and uncertain remuneration that took Jensen further and further away from sculpting. During this period he worked for various ceramic firms, which made use of his talent for modelling.
ART NOUVEAU By the turn of the century, Jensen’s views had changed and he saw metalwork as compatible with his artistic vocation, rather than an escape from penury. In 1900, work exhibited at Exposition Universelle in Paris was critically well received. It sparked two years of European travel during which time he became increasingly influenced by art nouveau. He returned to Copenhagen determined to create beautiful, handmade, and useful objects, as opposed to mass produced products that were being made increasingly by machines. Jensen became good friends with Johan Rohde (1856-1935) a painter, designer, architect, sculptor, and writer. Along with the Danish painter Joakim Skovgaard (1856-1933), Rohde founded an alternative exhibition, named Den Frie Udstilling, which was intended to challenge the traditional values of the Palace of Charlottenborg show.
MOGENS BALLIN The Danish Arts & Crafts movement, which was known as Skønvirke (for “beautiful work”), flourished from 1880 to 1920. One influential figure in Skønvirke circles was Mogens Ballin (1871-1941), the painter turned craftsman, who ran an influential metal workshop in Copenhagen. Ballin was inspired by English designers like William Morris and C. R. Ashbee. He made jewellery and hollowware, using inexpensive materials like bronze and pewter. He spotted Jensen’s talents and by 1901, Jensen was the foreman of this workshop, which employed about 30 people. Ballin nurtured Jensen’s talent, and allowed him to exhibit his designs under his own name, even paying Jensen a commission.
Above A classic art nouveau Georg Jensen tea pot with ebony handle. Below A bononniere
in blossom gold. The sweet jar has a flower stem emerging on top and a flower bud about to open
SHOP OPENING In 1904, with financing from a local businessman, Jensen set up his smithy – a cramped, second floor space – in a fashionable part of Copenhagen. Jensen specialised in silver jewellery, which was a field that required less investment than hollowware. His fortunes received a considerable boost when, in the same year, he exhibited at the Museum of Decorative Art in Copenhagen as an independent silversmith. The exhibition put Jensen on the map and when Johan Rohde visited with clay models of flatware he wanted to make in silver a partnership was struck up. Although the two men were opposites in character, they shared the same vision in design terms. They wanted to create everyday useful objects of the finest quality, influenced by stunning art nouveau design. The collaboration was fruitful and became a
permanent arrangement. One of Jensen’s most famous flatware pieces was designed by Rohde – Acorn. In 1906, Jensen finished his first set of flatware, named Continental, a nod to his time travelling in Europe.
EYE FOR TALENT Georg Jensen had an eye for talent, just as Ballin had when he took Jensen on. Some of the most influential designers that worked for Jensen include Just Andersen (1884-1943), Gundolph Albertus (18871970), Arno Malinowski (1899-1976), Count Sigvard Bernadotte (1907-2002) and Henning Koppel (1918-1981). Jensen continued to gain collaborators and workers for his shop. The staff grew to nine plus two apprentices. In 1909, his third wife’s youngest brother, Harald Nielsen (1892-1977), became an apprentice engraver for Jensen, but quickly displayed a talent for design. He began collaborating on designs with Jensen and Rohde, often creating designs so in tune with theirs that it was difficult to tell who the designer was. Harald Nielsen became one of the most famous and valued designers for Georg Jensen, even taking over as creative director upon Jensen’s death in 1935. The flatware pattern Pyramid is a design by Nielsen.
‘Being able to identify a period piece from a modern piece is one of the best ways to pick up bargains at fairs and auctions. From 1904 until present, approximately 10 different Jensen makers' marks have been used’ ANTIQUE COLLECTING 39
COLLECTING GUIDES Georg Jensen silver
Left A candlestick
in the blossom style, the hammered surface typical of Jensen’s style
WORLDWIDE EXPANSION
painting and sculpture in Paris and in Copenhagen. He was a generation younger than Jensen and came to silver design with different artistic references. The Swedish silversmith Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe (19272004) was another designer who made a name for herself at Georg Jensen. She started with the firm in the 1960s and soon became one the country’s foremost silversmiths and the designer of Georg Jensen’s famous ‘Mobius’ bracelet.
Between 1907 and 1918, business thrived. In 1918, Jensen had 125 staff and had to move to a larger premises. By 1923, a Georg Jensen store was opened in New York, and sales boomed. Jensen had cemented himself as an international success. Jensen was ambivalent about this growth, which resulted in a large staff and financial complexity. He felt that his creativity was being dulled, and spent much of his time alone in his small workshop, only travelling to the large workshop when he was truly needed. After Jensen died aged 69 in 1935, the company continued to flourish with new designers. Henning Koppel (1918-1981) was one example of the many important designers who worked at Georg Jensen. He joined the company in 1945 after studying
Mark Littler is an independent antiques consultant providing a brokering service for people wishing to sell their valuables. For more details go to www.marklittler. com Above left A blossom tea pot with ivory handle, showing ‘toad’s feet’ with a magnolia blossom on top. The hand hammering is a distinctive Georg Jensen feature, designed to recreate moonlight Above A blossom tea strainer with an 18ct gold-plated blossom bud Left Craftsmen in the Jensen studio work on Henning Koppel’s (1918-1981) designs Right A card holder in
the acorn style designed by Johan Rohde
40 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Collecting Jensen
Expect to pay
A guide to everything the would-be Georg Jensen collector needs to know
Fascinating flatware While English silver services are falling out of fashion, Jensen continues to buck the trend. Numerous designs were made by many great designers. Some of the most popular are the acorn pattern (designed by Johan Rodhe, c. 1915), the acanthus pattern (designed by Johan Rodhe c. 1917), the blossom pattern (designed by Georg Jensen, c. 1905), the pyramid pattern (designed by Harald Nielsen, c. 1926) and the cactus pattern (designed by Gundorph Albertus, c. 1930). The record price stands at £93,600 for a 188piece service of blossom pattern set by Christie’s New York in 2005. This is clearly the exception to the rule but services of Jensen flatware regularly sell for £1,000 to £10,000 at auction. Broadly speaking, the more ornate and elaborate the pattern the higher the price.
Old Jensen v new Jensen In some cases Jensen designs have been made and remade over the last 100 years. Indeed, the blossom pattern (and many others) are still available today. Although aesthetically the same, earlier pieces command a significant premium over their modern counterparts. However, to many collectors the age of an item is not an important factor, and being able to buy a modern version of an 100-year-old design for a fraction of the price is part of the excitement.
Makers’ marks From 1904 until present, approximately 10 different Jensen makers’ marks have been used. The current maker’s mark uses GEORG above JENSEN within an oval dotted surround.Georg Jensen designers used their own marks. For example, Vivianna Torun Bulow-Hube (often known as Torun) who began working with Jensen in 1967, would stamp her designs TORUN. Designers’ marks are found alongside the Jensen maker’s mark.
Above Georg Jensen c.
1920
Below right Designs by
Henning Koppel (19181981) for Georg Jensen are collectable today
At the top of the Jensen market quite aptly sit chandeliers. These monumental pieces of silver were often bespoke commissions and the record stands at £314,500 for a candelabra sold by Sotheby’s in 2014. This behemoth of a candelabra weighed 450ozt and was ordered in 1919 by the Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist Ivar Kruegar (1880-1932). Following on from chandeliers, centrepieces and candelabra are always in high demand and can sell for over £70,000 for a pair. Wine coolers, entrée dishes and other large pieces of table silver are next in terms of value, often selling for £10,000 to £30,000. What all these items have in common is their large scale and decorative nature. They can be viewed as much as works of art as they can be utilitarian objects. Broadly speaking, the greater the influence of the design the greater the price, no matter what the object. At the lower end of the spectrum, caddy spoons remain incredibly popular and can be bought for less than £100. Useful items such as corkscrews, dishes and sauce boats can all be bought for less than £1,000, although the age of the item does have a bearing on the price.
Essential reference Almost all Jensen pieces have a number on their base which refers to the Jensen jewellery and hollowware catalogues. Typically, these archives are hard to get hold of and expensive. Thanks to a 2002 re-print of Georg Jensen 20th Century Designs (Schiffer Publishing) identification is much easier and you can even discover the original retail price.
Impact of the ivory ban While news agendas have been elsewhere, the total ban on the sale of ivory will come into force soon, making the sale of any ivory, no matter the age, illegal. The blossom pattern tea service (and many other tea services) feature solid ivory handles. In the past these services have sold for in excess of £20,000. However, with replacement resin handles it is unsure how these prices will hold up. Therefore, the broad consensus is to sell now while you still can.
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 41
THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Bidding online If bidding live online on sale day, you simply log in to your account and read and accept the terms and conditions. You can then click to watch the auction in a pop-up window and bid live. When the lot you are interested in is offered, you will see the increments displayed as bidding progresses.
QA
Q& & &A
Above An auctioneer sells to an empty room
As more and more of us bid online we asked Mark Gilding, director of Leicestershire-based Gildings Auctioneers, for his tips on bagging a bargain
QA
Has the lockdown marked a rise in bidding online? Since auction houses introduced online bidding 15 years ago its steady growth became seismic in the light of the Covid-19 restrictions. Our first online-only auction saw an increase of 70 per cent in registered online bidders. This pattern has been repeated across UK auction houses reaching out to a younger demographic more used to online buying.
QA
What is the process? Bidders are required to register in advance; either on the website or via email. You will also need to register a bank card, but there should be no requirement to use this card to pay for any successful bid. Most auction houses also provide detailed instructions on their websites and offer assistance via telephone if there are any queries.
42 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
How much does it cost? It’s important to investigate any additional fees that may apply to the hammer price, such as buyer’s premium charges, live bidding charges, or Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) charges. In recent times, the trade has been instructed to make these charges clearer for buyers, inclusive of VAT, so there are no nasty surprises when receiving an invoice. Buyer’s premium charges do differ among auctioneers. In fact, they may even vary within the same auction house if they are hosting different auction categories. For example, there may be one rate for a general auction and a higher rate for a ‘Fine’ auction; these rates also vary across the UK, ranging from 15 per cent (as at Gildings) to 30 per cent. VAT is also applicable unless the lot is exempt (such as with books and maps). This means that a stated buyer’s premium of 25 per cent is actually 30 per cent inclusive of VAT. Live bidding charges may also apply; usually ranging between 3.6 per cent to 5.95 per cent per successful bid. At Gildings, our fee is 3.6 per cent and at the time of writing, along with many other auction houses, we are waiving this fee while restrictions make it impossible to attend a sale in person. This saving means that now is the perfect time to try online bidding.
QA
What is ARR? This is an additional charge that has been in place since 2012. It applies to original works of art created by any European artist who is still living or who has died within 70 years of the date of the sale. The artist (or their Estate), is entitled to claim the percentage fee of the hammer price. This fee is levied by the auctioneer and passed on to the relevant bodies to distribute to the artist. ARR percentages are applied on a sliding scale, depending on the hammer price. Crucially, they only apply on works that sell for the minimum equivalent of €1,000 on the day of the auction (usually around £850) and can add a further 4 per cent to the hammer price for works realising between €1,000 to €50,000. Each auctioneer should have clear guidance on this, and lots where it is applicable should be clearly labelled.
QA
How can I increase my chances of success? As all collectors know, the odds of securing a coveted item are often hard to predict, but the following can increase your chances: Getting your bid in early by offering the asking amount as bidding starts
•
‘Gildings, along with many other auction houses, is waiving live bidding charges while restrictions make it impossible to attend a sale in person. This saving means that now is the perfect time to try online bidding’
•Deciding on a maximum amount and bidding without
hesitation when the bidding starts to slow towards its conclusion Doing your research – watching auctions online is not just entertaining, familiarising yourself with the process will help you when you decide to take the plunge and bid for something yourself.
•
QA
How do I know the item is of the expected quality? While caution when it comes to buying an expensive or coveted item you haven’t seen in person is understandable, it’s important to remember that in the auction trade, reputation is everything. Over the past fifteen years, reputable auctioneers have worked hard to put processes in place to provide detailed and accurate condition reports for a global audience. In the current situation where no visits are possible, this has become more important than ever. All reputable auction houses can be trusted to provide clear photography and accurate estimate prices, but if you require further information, do not hesitate to ask for a more detailed condition report, more photos or even a virtual inspection via video conferencing software.
Right A Longines ‘Dirty Dozen’ military wrist watch, one of the first wrist watches commissioned for the British Army, sold for £3,600, well above the pre-sale estimate at Gildings’ recent online sale Below Phillips’ Henry
Highley conducts a recent online design sale, image courtesy of Phillips
QA
Can I still bid in other ways? Most auction houses who are hosting an online-only sale will probably still accept absentee and/or telephone bids as they would have done pre Covid-19.
QA
What is absentee or commission bidding? This is when you leave your maximum bid for the auctioneer to execute up to on your behalf. However, some buyers are reluctant to participate this way, especially if they are interested in an item at multiple times the pre-sale estimate. Ultimately, this requires an element of trust between bidder and auctioneer, as this ‘revealing of your hand’ has been abused in the past. Any reputable auctioneer should
handle these with absolute integrity and conduct the bidding with transparency. At the end of the day, it is in the auctioneer’s interests to acquire items for buyers as cheaply as reserves and other bids allow, because it instils the trust that is crucial to building a strong relationship with buyers, who may also become vendors. As an auctioneer, the eyes of the world are now on you, and people will see through any attempt to exploit a strong bid left in good faith.
QA
Explain telephone bidding? This enables you to listen to the bidding and perhaps make a more impulsive or responsive bid. If leaving an absentee bid and your maximum bid is passed, obviously you miss out on the item. However, if you are a keen collector with flexible buying power, the telephone bid allows you to fight more competitively for the lot in the heat of battle. Telephone bidding rules do vary from house-to-house. Some have minimum limits as we do, others are beginning to charge for the service, so it’s advisable to do your research before opting for this route.
QA
What if I am a seller, can I consign items online? Clearly, the ideal way to have items valued is by visiting an auction house or arranging a home visit for large or multiple items. While home visits are now resuming within social distancing guidelines, it still is not possible to visit for a valuation. However, pre Covid-19 most auctioneers already offered an online service for provisional valuations, which is good news for the many people who have been using lockdown to get round to sorting out items they would ANTIQUE COLLECTING 43
THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Bidding online like to consign for auction. Usually this can be done by uploading images onto the auction house’s website, emailing photos, or arranging a video call. You may be able to arrange for the safe and secure delivery of your item to the auction house, but even if not, lockdown presents a good opportunity to get the ball rolling on the process.
QA
Will online sales decrease after the pandemic? Every auctioneer is looking forward to the day when viewings can resume and they can look out across a packed saleroom. A room full of people adds to the atmosphere that auctioneers feed off and utilise to perhaps draw out an extra bid or two. Generating the same levels of excitement and engagement in online-only sales is a challenge for the auctioneer and needs to be approached in a different way. By adapting interaction with the camera and enhancing engagement through digital channels, it’s possible to maintain the rhythm, flow and atmosphere so important at auction. The increase in online activity will undoubtedly change collectors’ behaviour as they widen the scope of their collecting and discover that, far from being a soulless experience, online bidding can be dramatic and exciting. That said, most keen collectors will be as eager as the auctioneers to take a seat in the sale room again.
Mark Gilding has more than 25 years’ experience working at family-owned Gildings. He oversees all Gildings’ medals and militaria valuations and conducts most of the company’s home visits. For more information visit www.gildings.co.uk
Right Online auctions may open the eyes of the next generation of antique collectors Below left Online sales
can be browsed at home
Bottom left A skeleton
staff in the saleroom as an auction at Gildings goes online
Online auctions & Generation Z
Online sales will lessen the alienation under 35s feel about buying antiques, writes Lydia Blundell
Covid-19 has closed the doors of auction houses throughout the country and swathes of highly anticipated fairs have been put off until the autumn or cancelled entirely. If establishments were underestimating the power of online platforms previously, they currently have no choice but to embrace them. When I asked a group of 100 18-35 year olds if they thought the secondary market was as accessible for antiques as it was secondhand clothes, 74 per cent said ‘no’. There is an entrenched face-to-face element when it comes to antiques, which younger people can find off-putting. Natasha, who runs the online Urban Vintage Affair, said: “I understand how some people, who don’t know anything about antiques in particular, feel really intimidated going into a shop and not necessarily knowing what to look for and what to ask for. “By buying online, you’re anonymous, and so someone can send a message or send an email asking questions and it doesn’t really matter. There’s no face-to-face contact, so you feel less intimidated asking questions that you may feel are a little stupid.” The power of social media in the world of art and antiques cannot be underestimated: this has been confirmed by The Hiscox Report, which found that 75 per cent of those surveyed use Instagram to buy art. Having beautiful stock is one thing, but reaching your audience is becoming more complex. It is possible that the circumstances brought about by a global pandemic will have a lasting effect upon how the world of art and antiques markets itself and communicates to its audience. Lydia Blundell is a lifestyle and antiques blogger. Discover more at lydiasantiquelifestyle.wordpress.com
44 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
BUILDING A COLLECTION Autographs
Why I collect... Venezuelan Randall Salas’ autograph collection reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the 20th century, with 4,600 famous signatures mostly penned on the cover of Time magazine Can you remember the first signature? It was when I was 13 in 1959. My father was an avid reader of Time magazine and had kept a copy of every magazine he’d read since 1935 (the magazine launched in 1923). When my uncle went to Cuba in 1958, he managed to get a signed photograph of Fidel Castro. I was so impressed my father suggested I try to get the covers of his Time magazines signed. The first one I got was from Mike Stepovich who was the governor of Alaska in 1957. In the first year I received dozens of signed covers. When I was 17 I visited the magazine’s New York office and was given many back copies which I then set about getting signed.
How big is your collection today? In all, the collection amounts to 4,600 signatures, including 1,600 autographed issues of Time , with all the US presidents since Herbert Hoover (Except for FDR and Obama). I also have most of the UK´s prime ministers, such as Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. My big omission is Winston Churchill who didn’t have time for autographs. Over the years I branched out and sent out covers of Newsweek , Business Week, Playboy , Life and Forbes . From these I have signed copies from Charlie Chaplin, Agatha Christie, Pelé, John le Carré, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn, Bill Gates and Muhammed Ali.
Above A selection of Time magazines Right Signed covers of
Time and Newsweek
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 45
BUILDING A COLLECTION Autographs How difficult was it to research addresses in the early days? In the 1950s it was pre-internet so finding out where to send prospective covers was difficult. I would scour the article for clues and spend a lot of time in the local library in Caracas reading the nternational version of Who’s Who to find information. As time went on it became easier but fewer and fewer people responded. In the early days, 80 per cent of the people I wrote to signed the magazines, but this fell to about 10 per cent in the latter days of collecting.
How persistent did you have to be? My collection is completed with autographed photographs, menus, magazine pages, and even handkerchiefs. These include Pope John Paul II, Jackie Kennedy, Cary Grant, Simon Bolivar, Salvador Dali, Madonna, Edward and rs Simpson, OJ Simpson and all 12 Moon walkers on one photo. The latter category was bought from certified dealers in Germany and the US. In addition to which I designed a card to request autographs of people for whom I did not have a magazine cover, these amount to a 1,000.
Were some categories of people better at responding than others? Yes, for example astronauts were very good at replying, but Russian politicians were very bad. As was the British royal family. I tried them all, from Princess Margaret to Princess Diana and didn’t hear anything back (protocol forbids British royals from signing autographs). I did get one from the Soviet Defence Minister Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky who added, in Russian, “We struggle for peace all over the world ”. Some signed the cover directly (Neil Armstrong signed it in a restaurant) and I caught others including Indira Ghandi and Robert Kennedy when they visited Venezuela.
Very. I had to write to Steve Jobs seven or eight times before he replied with a signature – his secretary kept fobbing me off. Sometimes I had to get crafty. U.S. Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover apparently had a personal rule that he didn’t sign anything for people he didn’t know. I tried to get around that by sending Rickover a photo of myelf, but that didn’t work either. When I couldn’t find a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of president Franklin D Roosevelt, I drew a picture of her and sent that. I was only 15 or 16 and it wasn’t terribly good but she signed it.
Where there any notable replies? Marilyn Monroe (who signed in red ink), J. Paul Getty (who signed in black), and Tibet’s Dalai Lama. Some of the signers sent more than their autograph: John F. Kennedy enclosed an autographed picture with one of the two covers he signed, and J. Edgar Hoover added some FBI pamphlets. I never sent a stamped addressed envelope and kept many of the envelopes in which the magazines were returned. Pablo Picasso’s, I remember, had huge looping writing. Muammar Gaddafi didn’t sign the magazine, which he might have viewed as capitalist propaganda, but sent a signed photo instead. Elliot Gould signed his cover with “Time is s**t”, so perhaps he didn’t like the article.
‘Astronauts were very good at replying but Russian politicians were very bad. As was the British royal family. I tried them all from Princess Margaret to Princess Diana and didn’t hear anything back’ 46 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Who are among your top 10? It’s so difficult to say. When I received a reply from Mother Theresa it elt like touching a saint. Other than that JFK, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe and Katherine Hepburn all stand out.
How important is the collection? The collection is part of my life. I feel proud and satisfied, and that in compiling it have learned so much. I researched the lives of everyone I approached. It feels like walking through history. Having an autographed cover makes me feel like a part of that person’s life. That’s what’s most important to me.
Below In 1963, 17-year-
old Randall appeared in the magazine
Are you still going? No. There are many reasons: famous people are less likely to sign magazines now because they think you are trying to make money out of them on the resale market, (which I never was). Also, it is much rarer now for people to appear on the cover of Time , plus it’s much harder to track down Time on newsstands in Caracas and the post in the city is now incredibly poor.
Whose autographs have you the most? Did you strike up any friendships? I have JFK’s several times over, and I was on the Egyptian President Nasser’s Christmas card list for a few years.
The one that got away? I would have loved to have got Winston Churchill.
Randall Salas’ July 28, 1969 Newsweek cover signed by Neil Armstrong, is on sale from Paul Fraser Collectibles priced £2,950. For more details on this and others coming up for sale go to www.paulfrasercollectibles.com ANTIQUE COLLECTING 47
COLLECTING GUIDES Garden ornaments
GARDENERS’ WORLD
One of the few advantages of the lockdown has been rediscovering the joy of our gardens. Garden statuary specialist James Rylands reveals the ornamentation leaving others in the shade
W
hile people don’t actually ‘collect’ garden sculpture and ornaments in the same way they might Martin ware or 18th-century silver caddy spoons, like other collecting fields, there has been a radical shift in taste and values in the last few years. Brits have always been a nation of gardeners, which goes hand in hand with our national obsession with weather. Although we don’t have anything homegrown to match the gardens at Versailles, from Stourhead to Stowe t o t o t o k . to k g t is one of the most remarkable legacies of Georgian England. Created by t aristocrat and politician Viscount Cobham in the grounds of his family home 1717, the garden was created to symbolise t iscount political and social beliefs t t t g t t . Wt ot t o g t pioneered
48 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above An ornamental garden urn at the world-famous garden of Stourhead in Wiltshire, image Shutterstock Right A statue at the gardens of Versailles, image Shutterstock
the latest fashion in gardening and became one of the country’s first tourist attractions.
CREATING A VERSAILLES As a general rule the majority of antique garden pieces date from the 18th century onwards. As with indoor furnishing, they were made in increasing quantities throughout the 19th century as the middle classes proliferated and aspired to furnish both their houses and garden à la mode. Some of the earliest pieces were brought back from Italy from the 17th century onwards by wealthy young aristocrats engaging in the Grand Tour.
‘We have an adage in this business that you pay for the moss, and there are any number of time-tested recipes – involving everything from cow muck to soot and yoghurt – to give the natural ageing process of Mother Nature a helping hand’
Ostensibly the trip was to further their classical education, as witnessed in the antique statuary and decoration they shipped back to furnish some of the finest gardens in the land – much of which is still in situ to this day. The practice of importing statues continued to the early 20th century, by which time there were huge workshops principally in Rome, Florence and Milan making copies in both arble and bronze of the most celebrated works from antiquity. As a general rule, the earlier the piece the better the quality.
GRAND TOUR TREASURES The Medici Apollo or Apollino is a Roman copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of the adolescent god Apollo of the Apollo Lykeios type. It is now in the Uffizi, Florence. Found complete in Rome in the 17th century, though its xact early provenance is obscure, it was originally in the Borghese collection, until it was moved to the Medici collection at Villa Medici, where it was recorded in 1704. Much admired, it was extensively copied from the 17th century onwards and, like the dancing faun, copies of Greco-Roman statuary were popular among contemporary wealthy art collectors who wanted their own versions of ancient art seen during their travels in Europe and Greece, on the Grand Tour. The figure sold for £7,000 last year.
TAKE A SEAT Iron garden seats are the staple of any garden; the earliest examples available date to Regency times and are blacksmith made, often with reeded iron bars and segmented or scrolling backs. Many have replaced paw and scroll feet since early paints lacked the rustinhibiting properties of modern paints. Check to see if the feet have been replaced. Later copies rarely have the seat bars dovetailed into the siderails but rather spot welded on top. Modern castings tend to be heavier than period ones, with badly finished, visible seams. These began to be replaced in the mid-19th century by cast iron garden seats, the most well known of which were produced by the Coalbrookdale foundry in Ironbridge, Shropshire. These were made in a variety of different patterns, mostly incorporating natural foliate and flower motifs. They reflected John Ruskin’s desire for design to “return to nature” – a reaction against the mass production of the day, although ironically they were manufactured in exactly the sort of sweatshop foundry conditions which Ruskin abhorred.
BRAND NAME Seat prices have fluctuated hugely over the years. 20 years ago it wasn’t rare to see examples fetching five-figure sums. Inevitably, it didn’t take long for the fakers to start copying them by taking moulds from existing seats and producing copies which faithfully reproduced the foundry marks of the originals. Prices fell dramatically but are now on the way up with some of the more attractive patterns worth around £4,000£6,000. The price of Coalbrookdale seats far outstrips rarer patterns from other foundries, mainly because it’s the only one most people have heard of. Many cast iron seats and urns often acquire a wonderful patina of flaking paint and rust over the
Above
A bronze figure of the Medici Apollo dating from the last quarter of the 19th century Right A Coalbrookdale Lily of the Valley pattern cast iron seat, c. 1870, fully stamped CBDale & Co. and with diamond registration stamp, registration number and pattern no. 36. It sold for £5,200 in 2015 Below left A Regency
reeded wrought iron seat, early 19th century, restored with later additions, it sold for £3,500 in 2016
decades, but beware the modern Indian and Chinese copies which are often immersed in salt water and then painted so the rust comes through immediately.
FAKE MOSS Perhaps the biggest change in taste is, in many ways, a sad one and reflected in many other areas of antiques. Namely, it no longer matters how rare or old something is, it’s what it looks like that counts. It was very easy, ust a few years ago to be dismissive of garden sculpture and ornament made of composition stone produced in a mould often in large quantities, and in reality just a posh form of concrete. However, if it’s covered in moss and looks old then it will fit the bill for most people. We have an adage in this business that you pay for the moss and there are any number of time-tested recipes – involving everything from cow muck to soot and yoghurt – to give the natural ageing process of Mother Nature a helping hand. The latest fashion seems to be painting stone composition ornaments with a diluted tomato plant food which will encourage growth, and the rougher the surface of the stone the better for it to stick to. Situating pieces under trees and in the shade will also enhance the surface patina on the trusty moss-ometer.
COMPOSITE STONE Although manufacturers of composition stone now number in the hundreds, with varying degrees of ANTIQUE COLLECTING 49
COLLECTING GUIDES Garden ornaments quality and design, the earliest recognised company in the UK is Austin and Seeley who established their premises in New Road, London in 1841, manufacturing what they called artificial limestone. The aggregate has a distinctive look, with small lumps of whiter, crushed limestone giving a nougat-like appearance. Examples re becoming rarer to find and prices have crept up accordingly with nicely weathered examples often eclipsing similar pieces in carved stone. The original of the Austin and Seeley composition stone figure of Diana de Gabies (below) was excavated by Gavin Hamilton in 1792 on Prince Borghese’s property at Gabii outside Rome. In September 1807, it was purchased with the bulk of the Borghese antiquities by Napoleon Bonaparte, brother-in-law of Prince Camillo Borghese. It was sent from Rome between 1808 and 1811. By 1820 it was displayed in the Louvre where it still stands. On the advice of Sir Thomas Lawrence a plaster cast was placed in the entrance hall of the Atheneum in London. Smaller commercial copies were also manufactured, in bronze, in basalt stoneware by Copeland and in terracotta by John Marriott Blashfield.
Below left An Austin and Seeley composition stone figure of Diana de Gabies, mid-19th century, sold for £5,000 in 2010 Below A rare Georgian
lead cistern dated 1728, back and sides replaced in the 19th century, with a bronze side tap, sold for £5,000 in 2016
Bottom One of a
pair of mid-18thcentury lead figures of a shepherd and shepherdess attributed to John Cheere, sold for £15,000 in 2018
TAKE THE LEAD Sculptures and ornaments made of lead have always been popular in our gardens compared to the rest of the world. There is something about the wonderful silvery grey patina that old lead achieves which lends itself to the muted palette of British gardens, compared to more exotic and exuberant colours of warmer gardens. The earliest pieces rom the 17th century onwards made in any quantity are lead cisterns, which were often made to go in courtyards of large houses to gather rainwater from the roof. They were cast in flat sections using a sand pit into which wooden mouldings were pressed often incorporating a date, initials of the owner and armorials. The lead would then be poured in and, after cooling, the sections brazed together, usually into a rectangular shape and often a bronze tap was inserted. With so much information incorporated into the design, they offer a wonderful glimpse into the past.
GOOD CHEERE Classical lead statuary was also popular and often painted white to imitate Italian marble Grand Tour originals. These were made using a cire perdue or lost wax process and often supported by iron rods running through the ankles and into the stone base. Over the centuries water and moisture rusted the iron, causing it to expand and split the legs resulting in the downfall of the statue. No onger attractive they were melted down for ammunition explaining why they are relatively rare today. It also explains why the ones that did survive often have botched repairs on their ankles carried out by estate plumbers. John Cheere was the leading producer of lead statues in the 18th century, hich were sought after for the summer houses of the aristocracy. Some were reproductions of classical Roman or Greek sculptures, but there was also a demand for statues depicting simple, pastoral themes. Contemporary accounts of his yard, which was situated on Hyde Park Corner, indicate that his oeuvre was very varied and included rustic figures as well as classical statues and busts from antiquity.
EDWARDIAN REVIVAL
NAME THAT MUSE The Nine Muses are the goddesses of creative arts and poetic inspiration: Calliope the Muse of epic poetry Clio the Muse of history Euterpe the Muse of lyric poetry Thalia the Muse of comedy and idyllic poetry Melpomene the Muse of tragedy Terpsichore the Muse of choral dance and song Erato the Muse of love and erotic poetry and mime Polyhymnia the Muse of sublime hymn Ourania the Muse of astronomy
• • • • • • • • •
50 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Lead fell out of favour throughout the 19th century, but saw a revival in the Edwardian era of the early 20th century. The leading exponent was the Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts, established in 1894 by Walter Gilbert who, by 1908, had opened an outlet in London. As a result of their most famous commission – the iron and bronze gates outside Buckingham Palace – they were issued with a Royal Warrant appointing them metal workers to Edward VII. They were most well known for their lead work which was always of extremely high quality. Another important company in the field, H. Crowther Ltd., is still in operation today. Henry Crowther, the founder, had a good knowledge of 18th-century lead garden
ornaments, learned from his father’s antique garden ornament business founded in the 1880s. Having founded a business in Chiswick in 1908, Henry perfected a method of casting lead from moulds of sand and moist clay, meaning he could produce quality sculptural castings at a fraction of the expense, compared to the elaborate lost-wax method favoured by 18th-century craftsmen.
TERRACOTTA TREND Garden ornaments made of terracotta, which is clay fired in a kiln, became increasingly popular throughout the 19th century. The forerunner was Coade stone made by the redoubtable Eleanor Coade, who started her factory in Lambeth in the 1760s. She was followed by John Blashfield who opened the Stamford Terracotta Company in 1858, and Mark Blanchard, a former Coade Factory apprentice, who started his own business in Blackfriars Road, Lambeth in 1840. James Pulham & Son, which was awarded a Royal Warrant for the work it did on the Sandringham Estate, created its own artificial ‘Pulhamite’ garden ornaments popular in their day. Although better known to collectors for smaller, indoor ceramic sculpture and tablewares, Doulton also made a wide variety of garden pieces. Strictly speaking its products are called stoneware, where the clay is fired to a higher temperature, which vitrifies it and makes it more impervious to water and to cracking in icy weather – which terracotta is more susceptible to doing.
STADDLE UP One of the most enduringly popular adornments to any garden is the stone mushroom, or staddle stone. Virtually unchanged in design for hundreds of years,
LOST AND FOUND
Above A rare Bromsgrove Guild lead figure of the young Pan by Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingartner initalled WG/SC/LW, 28 (1928), sold for £6,000 in 2013 Above right Lost statues
of the Nine Muses recreated at the worldfamous gardens at Stowe after nearly 100 years
Left One of a pair of rare Doulton terracotta planters, early 20th century, stamped Doulton, Lambeth, London, sold for £1,100 in 2018
Nine lost statues of the Muses are being restored at the gardens at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. During the 18th-century, lead Muse statues attributed to van Nost the Elder stood in the landscape gardens. However, many were later sold off to pay family debts. Now, using three statues – one of the original Muses, alongside two from a wider surviving group – the National Trust has re-created the figures in composite stone and returned them to their last-known position in the heart of the historic garden. Curator Gillian Mason, said: “Stowe’s temples and statues reference classical myths, legends and events. At its peak, over 100 sculptural elements told these multi-layered stories.” Stowe’s historic gardens have reopened to the public but tickets must be booked in advance. For more details or to book a ticket go to www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe
Right A workman takes a statue away for restoration Below left A harlequin
set of six staddle stones, average height 64cm, sold for £2,100 last year
they were originally used to raise tithe barns and granaries off the ground to prevent rats and vermin from getting in. Always carved from local stone, very few still support granaries, but are used to flank driveways or in recent years, as fashions have changed, clustered in groups as a sculptural garden feature. In a way, this change of taste illustrates the importance that imagination and flair play in situating pieces in a garden, which is, arguably, more fun than rearranging one’s latest antique acquisition in a dusty display cabinet. James Rylands is the director of Summers Place Auctions one of the world’s leading auctioneers of garden statuary and natural history. For more details visit www.summersplaceauctions.com ANTIQUE COLLECTING 51
COLLECTING GUIDES Yongzheng porcelain
SHORT & SWEET Though it lasted just 13 years, the reign of the Yongzheng emperor was responsible for some of the great artistic advances, writes Sam Howard
T
he Yongzheng emperor reigned from 1722 until 1735. Although short, the period saw many cultural and aesthetic advances under an emperor who prized artistic excellence. The emperor himself oversaw and approved every aspect of ceramic production in the imperial kilns, and official records note that he would comment on the quality and properties of new creations, issuing directives such as ‘make thinner’, and to refine to achieve ‘an elegant presence’. If an object did not meet the aesthetic standards desired by the emperor they were sent back for modification or complete overhaul, showing that any objects created under the auspices of the imperial workshop fully reflected the personal artistic taste of the Yongzheng emperor.
52 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
LEMON-YELLOW GLAZE One of the artistic innovations of this period was the conception of the lemon-yellow glaze. Technically difficult to achieve, the lemon-yellow glaze traces its origins to earlier imperial yellow objects manufactured during the Ming dynasty. These objects utilised yellow and blue enamels to the body, and Yongzheng-period examples that use the same technique and similar decoration are displayed below. Objects such as these
Top A pair of Chinese underglaze blue and yellow enamel decorated dishes, Yongzheng mark and period, sold for £3,250 at Roseberys Above Portrait of Yongzheng Emperor (1723– 1735), unknown 19th-century artist, Metropolitan Museum of Art Right A pair of lemon-yellow glazed bowls, Yongzheng mark and period, sold for £50,000, at Roseberys
were reserved for imperial use only, except for a few pieces that found their way abroad as diplomatic gifts. The refinement of this new lemon-yellow glaze involved combining the antimoniate of iron with tin oxide - a technically challenging process, and one that resulted in the destruction of the piece if the slightest imperfection was to occur. Requiring immense skill in potting, glazing and firing, these monochrome pieces are some of the finest produced during the Yongzheng period. Below is an example of this refined quality - a pair of lemon-yellow glazed bowls, Yongzheng mark and period. These objects are wonderful examples of the craftmanship and the minimalist beauty achieved during this period. The Yongzheng period saw a concerted effort in the refinement of monochrome glazes, with 57 different monochrome colours produced during this time, both new inventions and recreations of older classics.
Above A Chinese painted enamel dish, Qianlong period to be included within Roseberys’ upcoming auction
IMPERIAL AUTHORITY
Above A Chinese porcelain wucai basin, Wanli mark, 18th century, sold for £3,250
Rumours of the illegitimacy of his position on the throne plagued the Yongzheng emperor, and he spent much of his rule fighting potential political challengers. These would-be opponents included his brothers Yinzhi, Yintang, Yin’e and Yinti, who all regarded his accession to the throne as illegitimate, and the emperor pursued an aggressive divide-and-conquer strategy to weaken their challenge. To further remove doubts on his imperial authority, the Yongzheng emperor oversaw the production of objects that bore imperial imagery rich with symbolism. These motifs, such as the five-clawed dragon, were reserved for imperial use only, and were used as visual displays of imperial power. A particularly commanding symbol that has a profound influence, even to this day, the five-clawed dragon expresses accomplishment and excellence.
PERFECT BLOOMS The Yongzheng emperor was a passionate collector and benefactor of the arts, and would frequently commission gifted court officials to create works of art that followed the aesthetic styles of certain masters.
‘Motifs such as the five-clawed dragon were reserved for imperial use only and were used as visual displays of imperial power’ ANTIQUE COLLECTING 53
COLLECTING GUIDES Yongzheng porcelain
Fake or Fortune? We asked Roseberys’ head of Asian art, Bill Forrest, how to spot if your Chinese plant pot is worth pennies or a country pile
For flowers, painters would follow the style of Yun Shouping, a 17th-century artist regarded as one of the ‘six masters’ of the Qing dynasty. Shouping’s works were highly expressive and made frequent use of vibrant reds and purples that had previously been shunned by Chinese painters for being too gaudy. With the period’s refinement of glaze and firing techniques, flowers on porcelain became more vibrant and expressive, displaying a painterly quality directly descending from Yun Shouping’s masterpieces. New developments such as famille rose, which had only been introduced to China by the end of the emperor Kangxi’s reign, allowed for beautiful depictions of prunus, chrysanthemum and poppy blossoms.
SYMBOLIC MEANING Flowers are also rich with symbolic meaning. The appearance of purple lingzhi fungus as on the bowl pictured below is significant, and appears only on a small number of other Yongzheng examples. Lingzhi represents immortality and longevity, the orchid is symbolic for love and beauty, and the chrysanthemum here symbolizes a life of ease. The appearance of these three together on this wine cup suggests it was a gift, and meant to bestow sentiments of a long and happy marriage upon the drinker. Sam Howard works in the Asian Art and Indian & Islamic Art departments at the London auction house Roseberys. Its next Chinese, Japanese & South East Asian Art sale is on July 28. For consignments email billforrest@roseberys.co.uk
54 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above A rare pair of Chinese porcelain anhua and famille rose bowls, Hongzhi marks, Yongzheng period, sold for £17,500 at Roseberys Below A porcelain
famille rose bowl, Yongzheng mark and period, sold for £12,500 at Roseberys
Firstly, one needs to determine whether the vase is indeed what it purports to be. Fakes are becoming increasingly deceptive and there is a huge number of them floating about. It is more likely the vase is ‘real’ if it has been in the family for a couple of generations, but bear in mind that fakes have been around for centuries, so it may be an early fake of an earlier vase! Look at the vase objectively. It’s amazing how much we overlook when we’ve grown up with an object. Imperial Chinese wares, prior to their sale for huge sums of money, have been used as lamps, doorstops, ash trays, and dog bowls, so it’s important to give them the consideration they deserve, particularly when the smallest area of damage can knock up to 90 per cent off the value. Look closely at them and ask some simple questions.
What to look for
Firstly, the object should be of good quality. Anyone can spot good quality. Is it well-potted? Is the glaze complex? Is it well painted? Does it show signs of age? An old vase will have significant signs of wear to the obvious places, like the upper rim and footrim. If the object has been kicking around for a few hundred years, think how many times it will have been picked up and placed back down. An old vase will have minute nicks to the surface, sometimes only visible if tilted in the light. Look at the interior – while the fakers try, it’s impossible to truly replicate layers of dust and dirt that accumulate from years of sitting in the attic or at the top of a bookcase.
Maker’s mark
Sometimes there will be a mark on the base, typically a reign mark to indicate which Emperor’s reign it was made during. I would say that around 95 per cent of reign marks are apocryphal, so it’s not always a reliable way of dating an object, but it often gives an indication of what the object is purporting to be. The most common reign mark to appear on Chinese porcelain objects is that of the Kangxi Emperor. However, during his reign (1662-1722) a ban was enforced on marking non-imperial ware with reign marks, so the vast majority of pieces exhibiting a Kangxi reign mark are not of the period. Ultimately, a genuine Chinese vase will have an ethereal quality. They are so well crafted they really can illicit an involuntary reaction. Chinese artisans were truly masters of their craft. They understood beauty and could project this beauty through the medium of porcelain. I genuinely believe that it is impossible for anyone to not be moved by its impeccable brilliance. The proportions, too, are aesthetically pleasing, and the decoration often compliments the shape. For example, an angular blossoming prunus branch might appear on a straight-sided object, while a meandering lotus scroll may adorn a bulbous, curvaceous vase with soft edges.
PM Antiques & Collectables are a modern and innovative antiques retailer based in Surrey. Specialising in a wide array of collector’s items, including contemporary art, entertainment and memorabilia, vintage toys, decorative ceramics, watches and automobilia.
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We Buy & Sell pm-antiques.co.uk Contact us: phil@pm-antiques.co.uk 01932 640113
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Antique Collecting Jun/Jul 1-4 page DNW
Entries invited for our forthcoming auction
Jewellery, Watches, Antiquities and Objects of Vertu to include Mid level stock, rather than top end ultra valuable Rolex sports models. Omega Seamasters and pre-1980s Omegas in general. IWC and Jaeger LeCoultres, all styles. Always looking for Reversos. American market filled and 14k pieces possibly, at the right price. Breitling Top Times, Daytoras and 806 Navitimers. Pre-1960s Rolex models, with a focus in pre-war tanks, tonneaus etc. Gold or silver/ steel. Also World War I Rolex 13 lignes etc. Princes. Early Oysters, up to 1970-ish. Longines and Zeniths, pre-1970. Even basic steel models in nice condition. All the quirky stuff like Harwoods, Autorists, Wig Wag, Rolls,Omega Marines etc, and World War I hunter, Borgel and semi-hunter wristwatches.
Early, pre-war ladies' watches also wanted by Rolex, Jaeger LeCoultre etc. Prefer 1920s/30s deco styles, but early doughnuts also considered. Looking for reliable new suppliers who can feed nice stock on a long term, regular basis. Cash payment and happy to buy collections or single items. Also old watch boxes, pre 1960s wanted. Both ladies and gents. Retailer or brand signed.
Designer Jewels from the 1960s/70s to be held in our Mayfair salerooms on
Tuesday 15th September Closing for entries 31st July Prices achieved at auction in the last few months have proved to be remarkably high, so do take advantage of the current strength of the market. We are happy to arrange client appointments on an individual basis, respecting all required social distancing measures.
Please feel free to contact us Frances Noble or Laura Smith 020 7016 1700 or email jewellery@dnw.co.uk
www.dnw.co.uk
A 1970s diamond and ruby brooch by David Morris to be included in the sale
Dix Noonan Webb 16 Bolton Street Mayfair London W1J 8BQ
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 55
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56 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
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ANTIQUE COLLECTING 57
ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER Lots in August
TOP of the LOTS
With rare jazz records, a gun, toy airships and trains, there’s a distinctly ‘mantiques’ feel to this month’s lots Below The model airships were
made by a German firm
A rare triangular games table made for the threecard game ombre or ‘hombre’ has an estimate of £8,000-£12,000 at Woolley and Wallis’ sale on August 11. Dating to around 1720, it features the arms of the Tower family of Weald Hall, for whom it was made with the motto Love and Dread. Further decoration includes pagodas, bridges and willow trees. Ombre originated in Spain in the 16th century with its popularity sweeping through Europe at the start of the 18th century. It was the the first card game in which a trump suit was established by bidding rather than chance. Above The japanned table was consigned from a private collection
Above The Hindenburg crashed on landing in
New Jersey on May 6, 1937, killing 97 people
Three rare, tin toy airships from a private collection are among the highlights of Tennants Auctioneers’ sale on August 5. The tiny replicas were made by Tippco, a company founded in Nuremberg in 1912 which is known for making high-quality military toys. The small tin Hindenburg has an estimate of £400-£600; the Graf Zeppelin has a pre-sale guide of £250-£350, while the model of the UK-built R100 has an estimate of £150-£200. An Accucraft model steam train has an estimate of £600-£1000 at Gildings’ sale of the collection of the late enthusiast Kenneth ‘Mike’ Abbott on August 18. Other makers in the 70-strong locomotive sale include Bachmann and Aster, with both offering a number of gauge and garden scale models, as well as three miniature locomotives which run on 7.25in gauge track. Mr Abbott’s 00 scale collection included more than 150 locomotives, few of which have ever come to market. When not n tour, the collection circled a garden route weaving between trees and plants before chugging over garden pond.
A 12-bore, self-opening, sidelock ejector gun by London-gunmaker James Purdey & Son has an estimate of £12,000-£18,000 at Gavin Gardiner Ltd’s auction at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire on August 31. The two-barrel set, in its makers’ case, was built in 1922 – the heyday of British gun making. It is being sold in aid of the Gunmakers’ Company Charitable Trust which supports the skills of workers in the gunmaking trade. Right The James Purdey
& Son gun is being sold in aid of the Gunmakers’ Company Charitable Trust
Below The 2m (6ft 6in) long zebra references the iconic album cover
Below Proceeds from the sale will go towards
the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway
A 1.65m (5ft 5in) high zebra model, showing the Beatles’ famous crossing scene from Abbey Road, has an estimate of £800£1,200 at Ewbank’s Magical Mystery Tour sale on August 26. The full-size animal, titled Zebby Road, was made by the animal sculptor Jenny Leonard (b. 1983) and featured in an animal trail around Marwell Zoo in Southampton in 2016. The unusual model is one of a number of pieces from the sale of the collection of music lover Tony Parks.
58 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
A life-time collection of more than 3,800 records, featuring the greatest jazz musicians of all time, is part of an online sale at Sworders this month. The array of 10in 78 discs, from the collection of the jazz aficionado Philip ‘Pip” Piper, includes early recordings from musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, the King Cole Trio and Humphrey Littleton. Alongside the booming interest in vinyl records, older 78s are back in vogue, with well-known collectors including Rod Stewart and Bill Wyman. Aside from the staggering number of shellacs (which predated vinyl and is named after the shellac resin from which they were made), the collection includes vinyl records, cds and an extensive jazz-related library. Lots include many scarce and rare examples on the Vocalion and Victor labels, as well as Brunswick and Columbia and Blue Note and V Discs. The archive is also made up of a rare, bound collection of Storyville a British jazz magazine that ran from 1965 to 2003 featuring jazz history, discography and record trading. Philip Piper was born in 1926 and became hooked on jazz in his teens. His unparalleled knowledge of the early years of the genre established his reputation as an expert, and was matched by an eye for records of both quality and scarcity. Highlights include recordings by Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Stéphane Grappelli, The Original Memphis Five, Fats Domino, Bessie Smith, Django Reinhardt and Barney Kassel. Valuer Michael Barnes, who atalogued the sale which ends on August 9, said: “It will spark a lot of interest from around the world. Japan, followed by the US are the strongest markets, then the UK. The European market is strong with France and the Netherlands leading the way.” In addition to the records, the collection includes an invaluable reference library chronicling the jazz era. Michael added: “The volume and quality of recordings accumulated over the years gives the collector a great deal of choice. In addition to which the large amount of reference material on offer is paramount for both the serious collector and novice. It will attract considerable interest as some publications are difficult to obtain.”
1 2 3
4
5 6
7
8
1 The lot includes 10in shellacs on the Parlophone label, including
recordings by Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, the King Cole Trio, Benny Goodman Sextet and Humphrey Littleton. It has an estimate of £500-£600 2 The lot includes 10in shellacs on the Vocalion labels (both red and black) and the Victor and RCA Victor labels. Artists include Benny Carter, Benny Goodman and The Original Memphis Five and Louis Armstrong. It has an estimate of £600£700 3 Storyville periodicals in hard-bound covers. It has an estimate of £500-£600 4 The lot includes 10in shellacs on the Vocalion label (both red and black) and Victor and RCA Victor with artists including Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Rosa Henderson and Louisiana Rhythm Kings. It has an estimate of £600-£700 5 The Storyville magazine was named after an area in New Orleans 6 The lot includes 10in shellacs on various labels with artists including Chicago Rhythm Kings, Cab Calloway and Bill Haley & the Comets. It has an estimate of £600-£700 7 The lots feature up to 50 records each 8 The extensive collection includes artists such as Cab Calloway, pictured in a Columbia studio, New York, in March 1947 (not in sale)
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 59
ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER Lots in August
Above Trade tokens were issued in
lieu of small denomination coins
A token issued by the man said to have started the Great Fire of London has an estimate of £180-£220 at Dix Noonan Webb’s sale of British tokens on August 27. Thomas Farriner (c.«1615-1670) was a well-known baker in 17th-century London, with his Pudding Lane bakery considered the source of the fire on September 2, 1666. 17th-century tokens were the first genuine trade tokens to appear in this country. The failure of parliament to provide sufficient small denomination coinage drove desperate traders to issue their own. The inscriptions commonly included the name of the issuer, his trade and occupation and the town or village he lived in. After the fire, Farriner rebuilt his business. Along with his children, he signed a bill accusing Frenchman Robert Hubert of starting the fire. The Rouen-born watchmaker, who was not in London at the time of the disaster, was later executed after signing a confession. A bust of a Jamaican nurse and Crimean War heroine, whose services were rejected by both Florence Nightingale and the War Office, has an estimate of £700£1,000 at Dominic Winter’s sale on July 30. Kingston-born Mary Grant Seacole (1805-1881) was the daughter of a nurse and Scottish soldier. Having moved to London in 1836, her application as a frontline nurse at the outbreak of the Crimean war was rejected. Undaunted, she went to the region and opened a restaurant called the “British Hotel” where she tended the wounded from Balaklava. Declaring herself bankrupt when she returned to Britain the intervention of Queen Victoria’s nephew, Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, saved her from destitution when he started a charitable trust which received funds from many influential people, including Florence Nightingale. Above The bust comes from the Jack
Webb Collection
60 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
A chest of drawers by Alan Peters OBE (1933-2009) has an estimate of £2,000£4,000 at Mallams’ modern living sale in Cheltenham on August 13. Peters was one of the best furniture designermakers in the 1970s and ‘80s having been apprenticed to Edward Barnsley from 1949 to 1955. The set of 13 acaciafronted drawers (including a secret one) are stamped in the top right drawer ‘Alan Peters 92’. The lot comes with copies of Peters’ original drawings, dated July 24, 1991, and an accompanying letter and invoice. For our profile on Edward Barnsley’s work turn to page 30. Above The drawers are in the arts and crafts tradition
A film poster for Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1957 film The Seventh Seal has an estimate of £250-£350 at Ewbanks’ movie poster sale in August. The 30 x 40in British Quad poster was designed by Cologne-born artist Peter Strausfeld who moved to Brighton in the ‘30s. On the outbreak of war he was interned on the Isle of Man where he met the Austrian producer George Hoellering. After the war, Hoellering opened the Academy Cinema on Oxford Street and invited Strausfeld to produce posters using his trademark woodcuts. Above Strausfield’s posters were a common sight in ‘60s London
A pink and white diamond ring has an estimate of £20,000£30,000 at the London auctioneers Elmwood’s summer jewellery sale on August 12. With the Argyle Mine in Australia (the world’s main source of pink diamonds,) set to close this year, the gemstone is bound to increase in rarity. Elmwood’s MD, Samuel Hill, said: “Natural and un-enhanced pink diamonds have lead the market for coloured diamonds for a long time. Their prices have soared in recent years.” Above The pink diamonds are of fancy vivid pink colour
FAIRS Calendar Because this list is compiled in advance, alterations or cancellations to the fairs listed can occur and it is not possible to notify readers of the changes. We strongly advise anyone wishing to attend a fair especially if they have to travel any distance, to telephone the organiser to confirm the details given.
LONDON: Inc. Greater London Sunbury Antiques 01932 230946 www.sunburyantiques.com Sunbury Antiques Market, Kempton Park Race Course, Staines Road East, Sunbury-onThames, Middlesex, TW16 5AQ, 5 Aug, 25 Aug SOUTH EAST AND EAST ANGLIA: including Beds, Cambs, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex. GNB Fairs 01702 410171 www.gnbfairs.com Antiques and Collectors, Stonham Barns Pettaugh Lane, Stonham Aspal, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 6AT, 23 Aug Antiques, Retro and Collectors Fair,
The Brentwood Centre, Doddinghurst Road, Brentwood Essex, CM159NN, 30-31 Aug Love Fairs 01293690777 www.lovefairs.com Antiques, Collectables and Vintage Fair, Brighton Racecourse, Freshfield Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 9XZ, 30 Aug St. Ives Antiques Fairs 01480 896866 www.stivesantiquesfair.co.uk Antiques Fair, Burgess Hall, Westwood Road, St. Ives, Cambs, PE27 6WU, 30-31 Aug SOUTH WEST: including Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire.
THE PETWORTH PARK
ANTIQUES & FINE ART FAIR THE MARQUEE, PETWORTH PARK PETWORTH, WEST SUSSEX GU28 0QY Come and buy the very finest art and antiques at our annual event of distinction
REVISED DATE 11 - 13 SEPTEMBER 2020 Friday 11.00 - 18.00 Saturday 10.30 - 18.00 Sunday 10.30 - 17.00
Arthur Swallow Fairs 01298 27493 www.asfairs.com Beale Park Decorative Home And Salvage Show Beale Park Pangbourne, Reading Berkshire, RG8 9NN, 28 Aug Grandma’s Attics Fairs 01202 779564 www.grandmasatticsfairs.co.uk Antiques Fair, Allendale Centre, Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 1AS, 30 Aug Antiques Fair, River Park Leisure Centre, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 7DD, 31 Aug Malvern Flea 01278 784912 www.malvernflea.com The Giant Shepton Flea Market, Royal Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 6QN, Aug 16 Vintage & Antiques Markets 07711 900095 www.vintageandantiques.co.uk Bath Vintage & Antiques Market Green Park Station, Green Park Road, Bath, BA1 1JB, 30 Aug EAST MIDLANDS including Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland. Arthur Swallow Fairs 01298 27493, www.asfairs.com Lincolnshire Antiques and Home Show, Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln, LN2 2NA, 12 Aug Guildhall Antique Fairs 07583 410862 www.guildhallantiquefairs.co.uk Antiques and Vintage Home Fair, Grace Dieu Manor and grounds, Thringstone, Leicester LE67 5UG, 22-23 Aug
To request your complimentary invitation for three please email AC@adfl.co.uk
0 1797 252030 www.petworthparkfair.com
THE
ANTIQUES DEALERS FAIR
LIMITED
IACF 01636 702326, www.iacf.co.uk Newark International Antiques and Collectors’ Fair, Newark and Nottinghamshire Showground,
Newark, Nottinghamshire, NG24 2NY, 13-14 Aug WEST MIDLANDS including Birmingham, Coventry, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire Field Dog Fairs 07772 349431 www.fielddogfairs.com Antiques ‘Fest” Southwell Racecourse, Rolleston Nr Southwell, Nottinghamshire NG25 0TS, 28-29 Aug Coin and Medal Fairs Ltd. 01694 731781, www.coinfairs.co.uk The Midland Coin Fair, National Motorcycle Museum, Bickenhill, Birmingham, B92 0EJ, 9 Aug NORTH Arthur Swallow Fairs 01298 27493, www.asfairs.com Outdoor Antiques & Salvage Market at Cheshire Showground. Tabley, near Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 0JE, 22 Aug Jaguar Fairs 01332 830444 www.jaguarfairs.cpm Great Wetherby Racecourse Antiques and Collectors Fair, Wetherby Racecourse, West Yorkshire, LS22 5EJ, 8-9 Aug Derby Conference Centre Antiques and Collectors Fair Derby Conference Centre, London Road, Derbyshire, DE24 8UX, 22 Aug V &A Fairs 01244 659887 www,vandafairs.com Nantwich Town Square Antiques Market Nantwich Square, Nantwich Town Centre, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 5DH, 8 Aug Nantwich Civic Hall Antique and Collectors Fair Civic Hall Nantwich, Beam Street, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 5DG, 31 Aug
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 61
NTIQUES NTIQUESCENTRES CENTRES
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ANTIQUES & WORKS OF ART EST: 1978
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“The biggest collection of fine and antique jewellery in London” £500 - Cheltenham £50,000 Cheltenham
Antiques Antiques
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Complement your home Complement your home with a fine crystal glass or with a fine crystal glass or brass chandelier. Over 300 brass chandelier. Over 300 old chandeliers for sale, old chandeliers for sale, many unique. All fully many unique. All fully restored and rewired. restored and rewired.
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Cheltenham Antique Market, Cheltenham Antique 54 Suffolk Road GL50 2AQ Market, 54 Suffolk Tel: 01242 529812Road GL50 2AQ Tel: 01242 529812
deliers.co.uk
www.antiquecrystalchandeliers.co.uk www.antiquecrystalchandeliers.co.uk
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THE THENEW NEWGLOUCESTER GLOUCESTER ANTIQUES CENTRE ANTIQUES CENTRE We have found a new home We have found a new home In the heart of the city of Gloucester In the heart of the city of Gloucester in a beautiful 16th century building in a beautiful 16th century building in historic Westgate Street in historic Westgate Street
COME VISIT AND SEE OUR WONDERFUL COME AND SEE WONDERFUL ARRAY OFVISIT ANTIQUES ANDOUR COLLECTABLES ARRAY OF ANTIQUES AND COLLECTABLES We have silver, jewellery, oriental collectibles, We have oriental collectibles, ceramics, art,silver, glass,jewellery, toys, postcards, railwayana, ceramics, art, glass, toys, postcards, stamps, coins and much more. railwayana, stamps, coins and much more. 58 Davies Mayfair, Enjoy browsing Street, on two floors of the Enjoy browsing on two floors of the original Mercers Guild hall, (Opposite Bond Street Tube) original Guild (expanding soon into Mercers two floors of thehall, adjacent (expanding soon intoChambers) two floors London W1K 5LPof the adjacent Maverdine Maverdine Chambers) We are open 7 days a week We- are open days a week Monday-Saturday 10-5, 7and Sunday Monday Friday 10am -11-5. 6pm Monday-Saturday 10-5, and Sunday 11-5.
Saturday 11am - 5pm
THE NEW GLOUCESTER ANTIQUES CENTRE LTD, THE NEW GLOUCESTER ANTIQUES GL1 26 WESTGATE STREET, GLOUCESTER, 2NG LTD, 020 7629 7034 CENTRE 26 WESTGATE STREET, GLOUCESTER, GL1 2NG
TEL 01452 529716 graysantiques.com TEL 529716 FOLLOW US01452 ON FACEBOOK
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62 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 65
1 The Square, Church Street, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 5BD 01732 865 988 cato@lennoxcato.com
www.lennoxcato.com
AUCTION Calendar Because this list is compiled in advance, alterations or cancellations to the auctions listed can occur and it is not possible to notify readers of the changes. We strongly advise anyone wishing to attend an auction especially if they have to travel any distance, to telephone the organiser to confirm the details given.
LONDON: Inc. Greater London Bonhams, New Bond St., W1 020 7447 7447 www.bonhams.com Islamic Art (online), Aug 5-13 Bonhams, Knightsbridge, SW7 020 7393 3900 www.bonhams.com Home and Interiors, Aug 5 Fine Books, Manuscripts, Atlases and Historical Photographs, Aug 19 Medals, Banknotes and Coins, Aug 26 Christie’s, King St., London, SW1 020 7839 9060 www.christies.com Jewels (online), Aug 12-27 Deep Impact: Lunar and rare Meteorites, Aug 12-25 Dix Noonan Webb, 16 Bolton St, Piccadilly, W1J 8BQ, 020 7016 1700 www.dnw.co.uk Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, Aug 20 Elmwood’s 101 Talbot Road, Notting Hill, W11 2AT 0207 096 8933 www.elmwoods.co.uk Summer Jewellery Sale, Aug 2 Forum Auctions 220 Queenstown Road, London SW8 4LP, 020 7871 2640 www.forumauctions.co.uk Books and Works on Paper (online), Aug 13, Aug 27 Forum Auctions with Artsy, Aug 27 Hansons, The Langdon Down Centre, Normansfield, 2A Langdon Park, Teddington,TW11 9PS 0208 9797954 www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk Antiques, Collectors and Specialist, Aug 29 Roseberys, Knights Hill, SE27 020 8761 2522 www.roseberys.co.uk Modern and Contemporary British Art, Aug 8 Sotheby’s, New Bond St., W1 020 7293 5000 www.sothebys.com
Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History, Jul 28 SOUTH EAST AND EAST ANGLIA: Inc. Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex Beeston Auctions, Unit 12, Paynes Business Park, Dereham Road, Beeston, Norfolk, PE32 2NQ, 01328 598080 www.beestonauctions.co.uk Coins, Stamps & Ephemera, Aug 12 Antiques, Collectables & Interiors, Aug 13 Bishop and Miller, 19 Charles Industrial Estate, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 5AH 01449 673088 www.bishopandmillerauctions. co.uk Mr Bishop’s Interior Auction, Aug 11, Posters, Aug 20 Books, Aug 21 Mr Bishop’s Collectables Auction, Aug 25
Clarke and Simpson Campsea Ashe, Nr. Wickham Market, Suffolk, IP13 0PS 01728 746323 www.clarkeandsimpson.co.uk The Monday Sale, Aug 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 Ewbank’s, London Rd, Send, Woking, Surrey, 01483 223 101 www.ewbankauctions.co.uk Antique and Collectors, Aug 5, 19 Militaria, Stamps, Books and Maps, Aug 20 Movie Posters, Aug 21 Magical Mystery Tour - The Tony Parker Collection, Aug 26 John Nicolson’s Longfield, Midhurst Road Fernhurst, Haslemere Surrey, GU27 3HA, 01428 653727 www.johnnicholsons.com General, Aug 8 Fine Paintings, Aug 21 Keys, Aylsham, Norwich, Norfolk, NR11 6AJ www.keysauctions.co.uk Book and Ephemera, Aug 13-14
Bellmans, Newpound, Wisborough Green, West Sussex, RH14 0AZ 01403 700858 www.bellmans.co.uk Interiors including, Asian Works of Art (live online), Aug 11-13
Lacy Scott & Knight, 10 Risbygate St, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 3AA 01284 748 623 www.lskauctioncentre.co.uk Home and Interiors, Aug 1, 15 Toys and Medals, Aug 22
Burtson & Hewett The Auction Gallery, Lower Lake, Battle, East Sussex,TN33 0AT 01424 772 374 www.burstowandhewett.co.uk Antiques, Aug 19 Fine Art, Aug 20
Rowley Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers, 8 Downham Road Ely, Cambridgeshire CB6 1AH, 01353 653020 www.rowleyfineart.com Antiques, Interiors and Collectables, Aug 29
Canterbury Auction Galleries, 40 Station Road West, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 8AN, 01227 763337 thecanterburyauctiongalleries.com Fine Art and Antiques, Aug 1-2
Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, Cambridge Road, Stansted Mountfitchet Essex, CM24 8GE 01279 817778 www.sworder.co.uk The Philip Piper Jazz Collection (timed online) Jul 31 to Aug 9 Fine Wine and Port (timed online), Aug 7-16 Homes and Interiors (timed online), Aug 7-16 Jewellery (live online), Aug 25
Cheffins, Clifton House, 1&2 Clifton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7EA 01223 213 213343 www.cheffins.co.uk Coins (timed online), Aug 7-21 The Interiors Sale, Aug 13
T.W. Gaze, Diss Auction Rooms, Roydon Road, Diss, Norfolk, IP22 4LN, Norfolk, 01379 650306. www.twgaze.com Antiques and Interiors, Aug 7, 14, 28 Rural & Domestic Bygones, Aug 8 Books, Aug 20 The Antiques Special Sale, Aug 21 Country Pursuits, Aug 28 SOUTH WEST: Inc. Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire British Bespoke Auctions The Old Boys School, Gretton Rd, Winchcombe, Cheltenham, GL54 5EE, 01242 603005 www.bespokeauctions.co.uk General, Aug 26 Charterhouse Auctioneers The Long Street Salesroom Sherborne, Dorset. 01935 812277 www.charterhouse-auction.co.uk Silver, Jewellery, Watches, Wine, Port and Whisky (live online), Aug 6,7 Classic and Vintage Motorcycles (live online), Aug 27 Dawson’s Auctions, 9 Kings Grove, Maidenhead, SL6 4DP www.dawsonsauctions.co.uk None listed for August Dominic Winter Auctioneers, Duke’s, Brewery Square, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1GA 01305 265080 www.dukes-auctions.com Avenue Auctions, Aug 4, 25 Coins, Militaria, Tribal Art Sporting & Maritime, Aug 20 East Bristol Auctions, Unit 1, Hanham Business Park, Memorial Road, Hanham, BS15 3JE 0117 967 1000 www.eastbristol.co.uk Antiques and Collectables, Aug 6,7 Jewellery, Aug 13 Military, History and Transportation, Aug 21
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 63
AUCTION Calendar Because this list is compiled in advance, alterations or cancellations to the auctions listed can occur and it is not possible to notify readers of the changes. We strongly advise anyone wishing to attend an auction especially if they have to travel any distance, to telephone the organiser to confirm the details given.
HRD Auction Rooms Ltd The Auction Rooms, Quay Lane Brading, Isle of Wight PO36 0AT, 01983 402222 www.hdrauctionrooms.co.uk Cowes Week Fine Art, Aug 11 Cowes Week Modern & Vintage, Aug 12 Lawrences Auctioneers Ltd. Crewkerne, Somerset, TA18 8AB, 01460 703041 www.lawrences.co.uk General Sale, Aug 12, 26 Mallams Oxford, Bocardo House, St Michael’s St, Oxford. 01865 241358 www.mallams.co.uk Tribal Art, Oriental Rugs and Carpets, Aug 26 Mallams Cheltenham, 26 Grosvenor St, Cheltenham. Gloucestershire, 01242 235 712 www.mallams.co.uk Modern Living, Aug 13 Mallams Abingdon, Dunmore Court, Wootten Road, Abingdon, OX13 6BH 01235 462840 www.mallams.co.uk The Home Sale, Aug 3 Philip Serrell, Barnards Green Rd, Malvern, Worcs. WR14 3LW, 01684 892314 www.serrell.com Antique and Fine Art, Aug 6 Victoriana and General, Aug 20 Stroud Auctions, Bath Rd Trading Estate, Bath Rd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 3QF 01453 873 800 www.stroudauctions.co.uk Guns, Weapons, Medals, Militaria, Taxidermy, Sporting, Toys, Cameras and Scientific Instruments, Aug 5,6 Woolley & Wallis, 51-61 Castle Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 3SU, 01722 424500 www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk Furniture, Works of Art, and Clocks, Aug 11 Modern British and 20th-Century Art, Aug 26
64
ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Wotton Auction Rooms Tabernacle Road, Wotton Under Edge, Gloucestershire GL12 7EB, 01453 844733 www.wottonauctionrooms.co.uk General Sale, Aug 25, 26
01789 269415 www.bigwoodauctioneers.com Furnishings, Interiors and Collectables, Aug 7 Summer Sale of Antiques and Collectables, Aug 14
EAST MIDLANDS: Inc. Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Sheffield
Cuttlestones Ltd, Penkridge Auction Rooms, Pinfold Lane, Penkridge Staffordshire, ST19 5AP, 01785 714905 www.cuttlestones.co.uk Antique and Interiors, Aug 5, 19
Batemans, Ryhall Rd, Stamford, Lincolnshire, PE9 1XF 01780 766 466 www.batemans.com Fine Art, Antiques and Specialist Collectors, Aug 1 Jewellery & Watches, Silver & Gold, Aug 14 Gildings Auctioneers, The Mill, Great Bowden Road, Market Harborough, LE16 7DE 01858 410414, www.gildings.co.uk The Kenneth Abbott Collection of Scale Model Railway, Aug 18 Golding Young & Mawer, The Bourne Auction RoomsSpalding RoadBourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9LE, 01778 422686 www.goldingyoung.com Bourne Collective Sale, Aug 12 Golding Young & Mawer The Grantham Auction RoomsOld Wharf Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 7AA 01476 565118 www.goldingyoung.com Grantham Collective Sale, Aug 5 Golding Young & Mawer The Lincoln Auction RoomsThos Mawer HouseStation RoadNorth Hykeham, Lincoln LN6 3QY 01522 524984 www.goldingyoung.com Lincoln Collective, Aug 19 WEST MIDLANDS: Inc. Birmingham, Coventry, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Bigwood Auctioneers, Stratford-Upon-Avon Warwickshire, CV37 7AW
Cuttlestones Ltd, Wolverhampton Auction Rooms, No 1 Clarence Street Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV1 4JL, 01902 421985 www.cuttlestones.co.uk Antiques and Interiors, Aug 12 Fellows, Augusta House, 19 Augusta Street, Hockley, Birmingham, B18 6JA 0121 212 2131, www.fellows.co.uk Watches & Watch Accessories (Online), Aug 3 Jewellery (Online Timed), AAug 6 Pawnbrokers Jewellery and Watches, Aug 13, 27 Jewellery, Aug 20 The Luxury Watch Sale, Aug 24 Fieldings, Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge, DY8 1JN 01384 444140 www.fieldingsauctioneers.co.uk The August Sale, tbc Halls, Bowmen Way, Battlefield, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY4 3DR 01743 450700 www.hallsgb.com/fine-art Antiques and Interiors, Aug 5 Hansons, Bishton Hall, Wolseley Bridge, Stafford, ST18 0XN 0208 9797954 www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk Modern Design, Aug 6 Countryman and Reliving History, Aug 15 Potteries Auctions, Unit 4A, Aspect Court, Silverdale Enterprise Park, Newcastle, Staffordshire, ST5 6SS, 01782 638100 www.potteriesauctions.com
20th-Century British Pottery, Collectors Items, Household Items, Antique & Quality Furniture, Aug 8 Richard Winterton Auctioneers, The Litchfield Auction Centre, Wood End Lane, Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS13 8NF 01543 251081 www.richardwinterton.co.uk Single Owner Specialist Fine Arts Sale, Aug 3 Antiques & Home, Aug 10, 17 Trevanion & Dean The Joyce Building, Station Rd, Whitchurch, Shropshire, SY13 1RD, 01928 800 202 www.trevanionanddean.com 20th-Century Design, Aug 22 NORTH: Inc. Cheshire, Co. Durham, Cumbria, Humberside, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Sheffield, Yorkshire 1818 Auctioneers Junction 36 Auction Centre Crooklands, Milnthorpe Cumbria, LA7 7FP, 015395 66201 www.1818auctioneers.com Weekly Sale, Aug 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 Adam Partridge The Liverpool Saleroom, 18 Jordan Street, Liverpool, L1 OBP 01625 431 788 www.adampartridge.co.uk Antiques & Collectors’ Items with Rock & Pop and Sporting Memorabilia, Aug 5 Anderson and Garland Crispin Court, Newbiggin Lane, Westerhope, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE5 1BF 0191 432 1911 www.andersonandgarland.com Town and County, Aug 5, 19 The Modern Auction, Aug 20 Boldon Auction Galleries Limited 24a Front Street, East Boldon Tyne & Wear NE36 0SJ 0191 537 2630 www.boldonauctions.co.uk General Sale, Aug 5
Antiques and Interiors Sale, Aug 19 Capes Dunn, The Auction Galleries, 40 Station Road, Heaton Mersey, SK4 3QT, 0161 273 1911 www.capesdunn.com Interiors, Vintage & Modern Effects, Aug 10 Collectors, Aug 11 David Duggelby Auctioneers Vine Street Salerooms Scarborough, North Yorkshire YO11 1XN, 01723 507 111 www.daviddugleby.com The Furnishings Sale, Aug 1, Aug 22 Jewellery, Watches & Silver, Aug 20 Decorative Antiques, Aug 21 Elstob & Elstob, Ripon Business Park, Charter Road, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 1AJ , 01677 333003 www.elstobandelstob.co.uk Fine Art and Antiques, Aug 15 Jewellery and Silver, Aug 20 Hansons, Heage Lane, Etwall, Derbyshire, DE65 6LS 01283 733988 www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk Antiques and Collectors,
Aug 13-17 Maxwells, The Auction Rooms Levens Road, Hazel Grove Cheshire, SK7 5DL, 0161 439 5182 www.maxwells-auctioneers.co.uk Antiques and Collectables, Aug 12 Peter Wilson Fine Art, Victoria Gallery Market St, Nantwich, Cheshire. 01270 623 878 www.peterwilson.co.uk Fine Jewellery & Watches, Aug 6 Books, Wines and Stamps, Aug 20 20th-Century Art & Design, Aug 27 Sheffield Auction Gallery, Windsor Road, Heeley, Sheffield, S8 8UB. 0114 281 6161 www.sheffieldauctiongallery.com Specialist Toys and Meccano, Aug 20 Tennants Auctioneers, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, 01969 623780 www.tennants.co.uk Toys & Models, Sporting & Fishing, Aug 5 Antiques and Interiors, Aug 7, Aug 22 Coins and Banknotes, Aug 19 Costume, Accessories & Textiles,
Aug 22 Thomson Roddick and Medcalf, Coleridge House, Shaddongate, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA2 5TU 01228 5289939 www.thomsonroddick.com Antiquarian & Collectable Books, Aug 6 Vectis Auctions Ltd, Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton on Tees, TS17 9JZ, www.vectis.co.uk 01642 750616 Specialist Diecast, Aug 13, 14 General Toy, Aug 18 TV and Film Related, Aug 20 Model Train, Aug 21 Warrington & Northwich Auctioneers, 551 EuropaBoulevard, Westbrook, Warrington, WA5 7TP, 01925 658833 www.warringtonauctions.co.uk Antiques & Collectables, Furniture & Pictures, Aug 5 Home & Garden, Antiques, Toys & Games, Aug 19
SCOTLAND Bonhams, Queen St, Edinburgh. 0131 225 2266 www.bonhams.com None listed Lyon & Turnbull, Broughton Pl., Edinburgh. 0131 557 8844 www.lyonandturnbull.com Scottish Silver & Applied Arts, Aug 12 Contemporary & Post-War Art, Aug 19 WALES Anthemion Auctions, 15 Norwich Road, Cardiff, Wales, CF23 9AB 029 2047 2444 www.anthemionauction.com General, Aug 5 Fine Art, Antique and Collectors’ Sale, Aug 19 Peter Francis Towyside Salerooms, Old Station Rd, Carmarthen, SA31 1JN, 01267 233456 www.peterfrancis.co.uk Antiques and Collectables, Aug 5
ANTIQUE COLLECTING 65
LAST WORD Marc Allum These trips were not aimed at steering my career but, when I add up all of the elements that stimulated me, it now seems quite clear what I was interested from a very early age. But it was the ‘university of life’ and my everyday experiences that really formed my motivation and my general skills.
TOOLED UP
Marc My Words
I
Marc Allum goes full steam ahead in encouraging the next generation of antique dealers
was recently asked to take part in an educational forum on Facebook called STEM to STEAM. For those who may not have heard of STEM education, it stands for science, technology, engineering and maths and is based on the idea that subjects should be taught together – as a fully-rounded interdisciplinary inquiry – rather than in isolation. It makes sense – as most people would agree, you rarely utilise just one skill-set in any given day. With the addition of an ‘A’, to stand for arts, STEM becomes STEAM. The idea, that the arts are integral (and by arts we mean everything from drama to visual media, music and design) to problem solving, means all these elements are taught together to create fully-rounded individuals equipped to deal with everyday life. This initiative is being pioneered in the UK by Carole Bent, drawing from
those who acknowledge creativity is a key element in the grand scheme of things.
FORMATIVE YEARS When I look back at my education I often wonder what I was actually equipped for. Yes, I have a degree but what was it that motivated me to enter the world of art and antiques? My qualification didn’t. When Antiques Roadshow hit our screens in 1979, I was teenager. I was inspired, but I saw no real way of furthering my interests other than off my own bat (although my parents inadvertently encouraged that interest with frequent trips to the Cotswolds to visit gems like Chastleton House and Snowshill Manor). The latter contained a lifetime’s extraordinary treasures collected by Charles Wade (whose motto was “Let nothing perish”), including everything from tiny toys to Samurai armour.
At home there was a good workshop with plenty of tools, a best friend whose father was a craft teacher, a desire to make and mend, learn about materials and apply them to buying, selling and collecting. When I think of the STEAM initiative it feels like we should be steering youngsters into this world, rather than just hoping they come across it by accident. When I consider the number of skills and expertise of my peers, from the academic, to restoration, curation and scientific analysis, I am amazed. Add to this a business-like knowledge of the international markets, interpersonal skills and even a propensity for flamboyance, then you start to see the skills required in the arts and antiques business. Despite the breadth of knowledge required, it’s staggering how many in the industry had no help, or learnt entirely on the job. So, given the difficulty of the times, this is a friendly shout out to anyone in a position to help a newcomer get a toehold in the business. New blood is the lifeline of our industry and the ‘A’ is an important symbol of our abilities. Marc Allum is a specialist on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, dealer and author. For more details go to www.marcallum.co.uk
Above left Childhood inspiration – Charles Wade’s bedroom in the Priest’s House at Snowshill Manor and Garden, Gloucestershire. National Trust Images, James Dobson Left A little curiosity bottle with its metal box from Snowshill Manor and Garden, Gloucestershire. National Trust Images, Martin Cox
‘When Antiques Roadshow hit our screens in 1979, I was teenager. I was inspired, but saw no real way of furthering my interest other than off my own bat (although my parents inadvertently encouraged that interest with frequent trips to the Cotswolds to visit gems like Chastleton House and Snowshill Manor)’ 66 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Specialists in the sale of single owner collections and estates
A 1964 Porsche 356C part of a private collection
SOLD: £48,000
INDEPENDENT ANTIQUES ADVISOR & VALUER • Antiques • Silver • Classic Cars • Watches • Jewellery • Wine & Whisky www.marklittler.com
01260 218 718
valuation@marklittler.com
Quick and easy, socially distanced
Antique Valuations Take photos on your mobile phone
We will call you if we need any further information
WhatsApp or text it to Elstob & Elstob on 07936 922661
We are RICS and NAVA registered with qualified valuers in your area
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We will send you an To include 17th Century and later silver, watches including auction valuation Omega and Rolex, objects of virtue and over 300 lots of antique, vintage and contemporary jewellery.
Elstob & Elstob Limited The Ripon Saleroom, Ripon Business Park, Charter Road, Ripon HG4 1AJ
t: 01765 699200 e: info@elstobandelstob.co.uk
www.elstobandelstob.co.uk
If you would like to sell the item we can arrange for a safe collection