Antique Collecting June July 2024 magazine

BOOMING MARKET

INDIAN SUMMER

How Cutch silver from Gujarat is taking the world by storm

Gillow Talk

A stunning library desk in the spotlight

Early

oak pieces 5

Every collector should know about – from buffets to coffers

JUNE/JULY 2024

BROTHERS IN ARMS SIBLING ARTISTS GILBERT AND STANLEY SPENCER

JACK THE RIPPER REVEALED THE COLLECTION BEHIND A NEW THEORY ON THE INFAMOUS KILLER

e London fair celebrating the 2,000year history of the humble teapot Miner

Works by the pitman-turnedartist Tom McGuinness

SPOUT and ABOUT

Welcome

I am no tea purist but couldn’t help looking askance when visiting my nephew in Madrid recently and watching him make it “the Spanish way”.

Forget the teapot and even kettle – a mug of water, milk and bag went in the microwave for 30 seconds en alto.

What t did do, as I reached for the coffee, was allow somereflection on how making the world’s favourite drink (after water) has evolved over the years.

In its earliest days in China, tea was drunk straight from the spout of a small teapot before evolving into a far more intricate affair. Years later it was the paraphernalia and etiquette surrounding the cer mony that so delighted its first English drinkers in the 17th century. In fact, so great became their obsession, it drove a number of technological advancements in British ceramics as makers tried to match imported Chinese porcelain. On page 26, to coincide with a focus on teapots at this month’s Treasure House Fair in London, we look atthe history of that most-beloved globular vessel and how they have enchanted collectors over the years.

Elsewhere in magazine, on page 36, the sadly neglected work of Gilbert Spencer – brother of the much better-known Stanley – is put in the spotlight. His fame is likely to improve with a new exhibition in Cumbria (Gilbert was evacuated to Ambleside with the rest of the Royal College of Art in WWII) and the publication of a newbiography. Prices –now in their hundreds – are sure to soar, making the artist one to watch in 2024.

On page 48, the author and historian Tony McMahon reveals how his collection of 19th-century newspapers helped inform his new book on Jack the Ripper. He is convinced the killer was, indisputably, Francis Tumblety – the Irish-born American also once charged with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln For any Ripper fans it is a must read.

As ever, our columnists are on ne form. On page 22, Catherine Southon highlights a work by the South African artist Vladimir Tretchiko (best known for his Chinese Girl portrait that launched a thousand posters); onpage 43, Eric Knowles discovers a peer’s coronation robe in Derbyshire and,on page 34, Irita Marriott reveals the booming market for utch silver Enjoy the issue.

THOMAS WOODHAM-SMITH

Behind the scenes with co-founder of the Treasure House Fair, page 6

CATHERINE SOUTHON

Unveils a painting by the soughtafter South African artist Vladimir Tretchikoff, page 22

PAUL GOUGH

Author of a new book shining a light on the artist Gilbert Spencer, page 36

Georgina Wroe, Editor

KEEP IN TOUCH

Write to us at Antique Collecting, Riverside House, Dock Lane, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 1PE, or email magazine@accartbooks.com. Visit the website at www.antique-collecting. co.uk and follow us on X and Instagram @AntiqueMag

TONY MCMAHON

On how his newspaper collection helped reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper, page 48

THE TEAM

Editor: Georgina Wroe, georgina. wroe@accartbooks.com

Online Editor: Richard Ginger, richard.ginger@accartbooks.com Design: Philp Design, philpdesign.co.uk

Advertising and subscriptions: Charlotte Kettell 01394 389969, charlotte.kettell @accartbooks.com

REGULARS

Editor’s Welcome: Georgina Wroe introduces the joint June-July issue

Antiques News: Five pages of things to see and do this summer, including six must-see exhibitions

Around the Houses: A round-up of the latest headline-making sales from the UK’s salerooms, including a watch worn on the Titanic and a collection of unusual and rare potato asks

Waxing Lyrical: Fine English furniture specialist David Harvey shines a light on a stunning secretaire desk by the legendary maker Gillows

A two-handled vase with red lustre, c. 1900, by the Italian maiolica maker Cantagalli, on show at this month’s London Art Week (LAW) from Justin Racanello, see

6 20 54

20 Saleroom Spotlight: A collection of early oak including ornatelycarved pieces that would have graced an Elizabethan home goes under the hammer in Doncaster

Lots to Talk About: Catherine Southon unveils a work by the South African painter Vladimir Tretchiko , the artist best known for his portrait Chinese Girl

32 Your Letters: is month’s postbag includes more correspondence on one of the UK’s most celebrated murders and some special memories of Tonka toys

34 Lots of Love: Irita Marriott delves into the history of Kutch silver and its Indian makers who are increasingly popular with collectors

42 Subscription O er: Save more than a third on the annual price and receive a free book worth £40 and the magazine delivered straight to your door

43 In the Knowles: Eric Knowles discovers a treasure trove of country estate clothing including an aristocrat’s coronation robe

52 Puzzle Pages: Put your feet up this summer while perusing this month’s quizzes, courtesy of resident editor Peter Wade-Wright

54 Top of the Lots: We preview some of the UK salerooms’ most exciting upcoming sales, including four evocative works by the miner-turned-artist and former Bevin boy Tom McGuinness

publication celebrating New York’s party scene in the ‘80s

58 Fairs News: Behind the scenes at this month’s high-pro le events, with a focus on the second edition of the Treasure House Fair in London

59 Fairs Calendar: Keep up to date with the latest events taking place in June and July around the UK

60 Auctions Calendar: Never miss another sale with our regional roundup detailing all the best upcoming sales

66 Marc My Words: e Antiques Roadshow expert and dapper dresser Marc Allum reports from this year’s Savile Row Concours

FEATURES

26 Steeped in Time: No other piece of tableware has had the same e ect on the British ceramics industry as the teapot. Antique Collecting reports on 200 years of the famous vessel

36 Brothers in Arms: e light of the artist Gilbert Spencer, sibling of the more famous Stanley, is set to shine more brightly in the wake of a new exhibition on his war-time work and a new biography

44 Sofa So Good: Today’s collectors can learn much from furniture manuals of yesteryear, writes Professor Mark Westgarth curator of a new exhibition on early pattern books

48 Why I Collect: How author and historian Tony McMahon’s 19th-century collection of newspapers on Jack the Ripper informed his new and compelling theory on the identity of the notorious killer

WEEKDAYS FROM 9.30AM TO 1PM,

WHAT’S ON IN JUNE & JULY

A NTIQUE news

Enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour of Buckingham Palace, discover how Georgians dressed and take a look at Elton John’s photo collection this summer

FACE PAINTS

A portrait of Sir Winston Churchill could fetch up to £800,000 this month after being on display at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire – where the wartime PM was was born 150 years ago.

The piece was painted by British artist Graham Sutherland (1903-1980) in preparation for a work that was later destroyed.

The Houses of Parliament commissioned Sutherland to paint a portrait of Churchill for his 80th birthday in 1954. An episode of hit Netflix drama The Crown revolved around the creation of the painting and showed Churchill’s wife, Clementine, watching it go up in flames after it was unveiled. The portrait was due to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s on June 6.

Wing walkers

is summer sees the newly revamped East Wing of Buckingham Palace, home of the famous balcony, open to the public for the rst time.

From July 15 to August 31 visitors can take part in guided tours of the rooms which were added to the famous building in 1847 and 1849 to accommodate Queen Victoria’s growing family. e extension was nanced through the sale of George IV’s seaside retreat in Brighton with some of the Chinese-inspired contents of the Royal Pavilion transferred to the new suite of rooms. Tickets are £75.

Above e Yellow Drawing Room, part of the newly revamped East Wing at Buckingham Palace, credit Peter Smith

Right A French court suit of coat, waistcoat and breeches, c.1760s, © Fashion Museum Bath

Below right French fan depicting the Ascent of M. Charles’s and M. Robert’s Balloon, 1783

Below left Graham Sutherland’s portrait of the wartime leader goes under the hammer on June 6

Bottom Right A corset in silver grey silk ta eta and a oor length skirt from Westwood’s 1998-1999 collection

FASHION FORWARD

Georgian fashion is the focus of an Edinburgh exhibition on until September 22.

The exhibition at the Palace of Holyroodhouse showcases period clothing from a crosssection of society, ranging from laundry maid’s garments to glittering ballgowns. In addition, portraits by artists of the period, including Thomas Gainsborough and William Hogarth, will provide an insight into sartorial styles of the day. The secret language of fans and their uses is also explored.

WESTWOOD HO

Fashion and textile collectors have the chance to explore the wardrobe of Vivienne Westwood – the doyenne of punk rock fashion – who died in 2022

Ahead of two sales at Christies, the auction house is staging a free public exhibition showcasing the designer’s personal collection at its headquarters at King Street, London, from June 14-24. Among other fashion accolades, Westwood is credited with introducing underwear as outerwear and reviving the female corset.

1Photo nish

More than 300 rare prints from 140 of the best photographers of the 20th and 21st century are on show at the V&A – all from the private collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish.

Taken from the couple’s collection of more than 7,000 images, amassed over 30 years, the photographs (many on public display for the rst time) explore fashion, reportage, celebrity, the male body and American photography.

Portraits of stars from stage and screen from the golden years of Hollywood also feature at the exhibition on until January 5 next year.

3

In the swing

is month sees the unveiling of a series of portraits of the circus artist known as Miss La La by the French impressionist artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917).

In January 1879, Degas became mesmerised by the dexterity of the star acrobat at the newly-built Cirque Fernando in Paris.

Born in Szczecin, Prussia (now Poland) to a European mother and African-American father, Anna Albertine Olga Brown (1858‒1945) went on to gain worldwide fame as an aerialist.

Degas made her the subject of one of his most original paintings, capturing her suspended from a rope clenched between her teeth as she spirals towards the circus ceiling.

e exhibition is on at the National Gallery from June 6 to September 1.

Right George Leslie Hunter (1877-1931) Still Life with Cut Melon, Glass and Fan, c.1919, on loan from the Cross family collection

Below left David LaChapelle (b. 1963) Elton John, Egg On His Face, New York, 1999, © David LaChapelle

Below right Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) St Ives, Cornwall, 19431945, oil and graphite on canvas, Tate

to see in JUNE 3

Right Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) Ironbridge Interior, 1941, on long loan to the Towner collection, image Towner Eastbourne

Left Robert Mapplethorpe (19461989) Poppy, 1988, © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

Far left Eve Arnold (1912-2012), Malcolm X, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1962, © Eve Arnold, Magnum Photos

Far right Edgar Degas (1834-1917) Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, 1879, e J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California

Below right Edgar Degas (1834-1917) At the Cirque Fernando, 1879, © Bibliothèque numérique de l’INHA

Right Edgar Degas (1834-1917) Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, 1879, © e National Gallery, London

2

Life style

e enduring popularity of still life is the theme of a new exhibition at a Chichester gallery.

e Shape of ings, on at the Pallant Gallery until October 20, considers how 20th-century British artists expanded the genre to explore broader themes of the human condition. About 150 artworks will be on display by some 100 artists, including Vanessa Bell, Lucian Freud, Gluck and Walter Sickert.

e exhibition starts in Holland with the earliest depictions of owers, food and scienti c objects inspired in part by 17th-century Dutch trade.

Animal magic

London Zoo has asked the public to share memories for an exhibition celebrating its 200th anniversary.

Items so far submitted include vintage zoo toys and historic tickets, both of which will go on show to mark the landmark occasion in 2026.

They will join items from the zoo’s archive, ranging from a first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to a bearshaped soap which marked the birth of the zoo’s first polar bear in the 1940s.

Prize ghters

Five UK museums are set to battle it out in July for the sought-after title of Art Fund Museum of the Year and scoop a £120,000 prize. Craven Museum, based in Skipton, North Yorkshire is one of the nalists alongside Dundee Contemporary Arts, Manchester Museum, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Young V&A, also in the capital. Community engagement and sustainable ways of working are two of the judging criteria for the prize which will be announced on July 10. Last year’s winner was the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

HAIL CAESAR

A sketch by the renowned portraitist George Romney (1734-1802), which has been in the same family collection since it was painted, is up for sale in July. e sketch depicts Caesar Hawkins and was, according to the artist, “one of the best turned heads he had ever done.”

Born near Dalton-in-Furness, Romney was one of the most celebrated portrait painters of his age. When the sketch was painted, he had just returned from Italy where he studied the Old Masters. e painting has an estimate of £20,000-£30,000 at the Leyburn-based auctioneer Tennants’ sale on July 13.

30 seconds with...

Thomas WoodhamSmith, co-founder and director of this month’s Treasure House Fair

How did you start in the antiques business?

At university I had no idea that the art world even existed. After graduating without a job I took a holiday placement at the London antique dealers Mallett and stayed 30 years.

How did your role as a fairs organiser evolve?

On my first day at Mallett we set up its stand at the Grosvenor House Arts and Antiques Fair. The energy, camaraderie, merriment and, above all, glamour swept me away.

HEAD’S UP

A 4½in bronze head of the Roman emperor Caligula (12-41), said to reflect both his youth and callousness, is going on show 182 years after it ‘disappeared’. It came to light after a decadelong search by Dr Silvia Davoli, curator at Strawberry Hill, Horace Walpole’s former Twickenham home, having been lost at the ‘great sale’ of 1842. It can be seen at the exhibition Journey Through Time: Caligula’s Bronze Head and the Art of Treasure Hunting at Strawberry Hill from June 28 to September 8.

I went on to serve on various fair boards until I founded Masterpiece. The group that developed that event was powerful: with Harry Van Der Hoorn, director of the international stand-building company Stabilo at its core. Together we went on to found the Treasure House Fair as a leaner version of Masterpiece.

What are the current challenges facing antiques fairs?

Fairs have always been expensive to mount – that is not new. But the cost pressures on international shipping are tremendous, which is why we are working with the shipping company Momart to ameliorate them. The greatest pressure for an interdisciplinary fair is to find the right balance between collectors and pleasure seekers. We want to retain and entertain both, and alienate no one.

Do you collect? If so, what?

I don’t really collect but I do love rare and beautiful things, fine craftsmanship and materials. I am not a minimalist and my home is crammed with things that both delight and inspire me.

Do you have a favourite decorative era, or design movement?

The most amazing time in decorative arts history is the period of 50 years or so after the French revoked the edict of Nantes.

This led to the Huguenot diaspora and, across the world, we are beneficiaries of the work carried out by these craftsmen, wherever they landed from 1685-1730.

The second Treasure House Fair takes place in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea from June 27 to July 2. For more details turn to page 58, or go to www.treasurehousefair.com

Above Archivist Natasha Wakely holds a 1930s ostrich egg, decorated with a map of Whipsnade Zoo, © Jas Lehal, PA

Below A revamped National Portrait Gallery opened in 2023, image courtesy of the Art Fund

Above George Romney (1734-1802) Caesar Hawkins, Head Study, image courtesy of Tennants

Below e treasured bronze goes on show this month, image courtesy of Strawberry Hill

1Snapped up

e newly renamed King’s Gallery, next to Buckingham Palace, is hosting a summer exhibition charting the evolution of royal portrait photography from the 1920s to the present day.

Royal Portraits: a Century of Photography, on until October 6, brings together more than 150 photographic prints, showing how the Royal Family has harnessed the power of photography to project both the grandeur and tradition of monarchy.

It includes the work of the most celebrated royal photographers, from Cecil Beaton and Dorothy Wilding to Annie Leibovitz and Rankin.

As part of the organisation’s charitable pledge, the Royal Collection Trust has launched a new scheme of £1 tickets for people on Universal Credit and other bene ts.

Left Antony ArmstrongJones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, Prince Charles and Princess Anne, 1956, credit Antony Armstrong-Jones

Right JMW Turner (17751851) Sunset, 1830-1835, © Tate

Below right JMW Turner (1775-1851) Shields, on the River Tyne, engraved by C. Turner, 1823 © Tate

Far right JMW Turner (1775-1851) Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London, 1841 © Tate

3

2 Hot topic

e relationship JMW Turner (1775-1851) had with the natural world is explored in an exhibition opening this month at Sandycombe Lodge, his former home in Twickenham.

3

Avian hue

e work of Sèvres porcelain artist Louis-Denis Armand (1723-1796), one of the foremost painters of birds, is at the centre of a new exhibition on all things avian at a Buckinghamshire manor.

Waddesdon Manor, built at the end of the 19th century by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, is hosting Flights of Fancy until October 27.

e baron was an inspired collector and bird lover, with his chateau-style house designed to showcase his exceptional nds alongside a magni cent rococo aviary built in 1889.

e exhibtion will be the rst to focus solely on the work of Armand and includes 50 loans from private collections and the Musée National de Céramique at Sèvres. For more on Sèvres porcelain turn to page 26.

to see in JULY

Far left Cecil Beaton (1904-10980) Princess Elizabeth, 1942

Left Antony ArmstrongJones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, (1930-2017), Princess Margaret, 1966, credit Snowdon

Below right Ferdinand de Rothschild (18381898) feeding an ibis at Waddesdon aviary, 1890s, © Waddesdon Image Library

Bottom right Two orioles by Louis-Denis Armand (1723-1796), c.1780s, © Waddesdon Image Library

Below Sèvres porcelain ice-cream cooler, 1767. Painted by Louis-Denis Armand (1723-1796), © Waddesdon Image Library, Mike Fear

A World of Care: Turner and the Environment, which runs at Turner’s House from July 6 to October 27, re ects the landscape painter’s concern of the toll the Industrial Revolution was taking on nature. e exhibition features the rarely-seen oil painting Sunset, c.1830-1835; the original drawing of London from Greenwich, 1808-1809 and Fire at the Grand Storehouse of the Tower of London, 1841. Curator, Dr omas Ardill, said: “Without knowing it, Turner was recording the early stages of climate and ecological breakdown with signs that human activity was already irrevocably damaging the environment.”

Gone to Iceland

Gone to

The a ection the arts and crafts designer William Morris felt for Iceland is the subject of an exhibition at his Oxfordshire home of Kelmscott Manor this summer. Morris travelled to Iceland twice, once in 1871 and again in 1873 and was also captivated by its haunting beauty His daughter, the textile designer May Morris, shared his a ection for its landscape. The exhibition Mountains and Plains and Adventure, from June 5 to October26, marks the 150th anniversary of her first trip. The exhibition runs from June 5to October 26.

FRANKLY SPEAKING

A handwritten memoir and sketchbook by Francis Austen, older brother of Jane Austen (1775-1817), has gone on display at her Hampshire home in Chawton where she spent the last eight years of her life.

Admiral Sir Francis William Austen, known to his family as Frank, detailed impressions of the countries he visited during 79 years at sea along with watercolours and drawings, predominantly of the West Indies and Canada.

Red twist

ere’s a chance to see the rst o cial portrait of King Charles when it goes on show at a London gallery this month.

Commissioned on behalf of the Drapers’ Company, the monumental portrait, measuring nine feet by seven, is by the leading gurative artist Jonathan Yeo and on show at Philip Mould’s gallery in Pall Mall until June 14.

In the portrait, the monarch is pictured wearing a red military uniform re ecting his role as Regimental Colonel in the Welsh Guards. A butter y also appears by his left shoulder, an addition that was reportedly the king’s suggestion, as a symbol of metamorphosis and rebirth.

GLASS ACT

Some of the rarest surviving glass from the 18th-century has been refitted to the gothic tomb it came from.

The National Trust returned the artwork to The Vyne in Basingstoke,

Pepsi max

News that Rolex may stop production of one of its most popular watches – the GMT-Master II ‘Pepsi’ – could drive up demand on the secondary market, according to dealers.

e famous Swiss maker is rumoured to have stopped making the iconic blue and red watch because creating a perfect crimson colour on the bezel is di cult, causing 50 per cent of them to land on the scrap heap.

Expert Paul Fraser said: “ at’s why Rolex only successfully releases around 3,500 of these watches a year. And if the news is con rmed production is to end, scarcity is going to reach unprecedented levels.”

Originally introduced in the 1950s, the GMT Master series was designed for pilots allowing them to keep track of multiple time

Hampshire, after it was removed for conservation.

The frieze, designed by craftsman John Rowell (1689-1756) depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds after Van Dyck and is largely considered to be the most important surviving example of Rowell’s glass work.

Curator, Dominique Shembry, said: “It’s wonderful to see the windows back in their rightful place, looking so clean and free from mould.”

The Vyne was transformed from a cluster of medieval buildings into a Tudor palace between 1500 and 1520 by William Sandys, who became Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII in 1526.

Above left e windows in the tomb have been covered in glazing for protection, image National Trust Images, Megan Taylor

zones simultaneously.

e highly contrasting red and blue bezel, reminiscent of the colours of the Pepsi logo, has become an iconic symbol in the world of horology.

Above A Rolex GMT-Master II ‘Pepsi’ Oyster Perpetual wristwatch, image Paul Fraser

Right Jonathan Yeo’s portrait can be seen for free in London this month

Above May Morris exploring Iceland on horseback, image courtesy of Kelmscott Manor

Collectibles

Below joined the Hiscox team

Above Drawings of Grenada and Martinique from Francis Austen’s sketchbook, image courtesy of Jane Austen’s House

A ROUND the HOUSES

Two pocket watches – one worn on the Titanic and the other a gift to Winston Churchill – were among the UK salerooms’ recent sales

Work by the Yoruba artist Muraina Oyelami was popular at the recent London sale

Olympia Auctions, London

This painting by the Iraqi artist Ardash Kakafian was the sale’s top seller

Henry Aldridge & Son, Devizes

A gold pocket watch found on the body of American business magnate John Jacob Astor IV (1864-1912) in the Titanic disaster, expected to sell for £100,000-£150,000, was hammered down at £900,000 at the Wiltshire auctioneer’s recent sale.

e result matched the auctioneer’s previous Titanic record of £900,000 for a violin played by the ship’s bandmaster Wallace Hartley. At the recent sale Hartley’s leather case sold for £290,000, tripling its low estimate.

The bag belonged to Titanic bandmaster Wallace Hartley who played while the ship sank

Tennants, Leyburn

Titanic passenger John Astor was the world’s wealthiest man when he boarded the doomed vessel

A collection of a dozen 19th-century potato asks sold for £650, beating its low pre-sale guide price of £400. Little research has been carried out on the oddly-shaped potter vessels, but some have suggested they evolved from novelty stirrup cups, or were made to be lled with homemade spirits such as potcheen made out of potatoes. ey rarely appear at auction.

Potato flasks were designed to hold spirits, likely made from the root vegetable they are named after

Middle Eastern artists proved the biggest draw at the London auction house’s recent sale, with an acrylic on canvas by the post-war Iraqi painter Ardash Kaka an (1941-1999) selling for £13,000, beating its estimate of £3,000-£5,000. e bold work called Sense of Belonging was the top lot of Olympia’s twice-yearly sale of modern and contemporary African and Middle Eastern art, selling to a buyer from Lebanon.

At the same sale a sculpture by the London-based Iraqi artist Dia Al Azzawi (b. 1939) titled Blue Face hammered at £6,500, beating its low estimate of £3,500.

Two works by the celebrated Nigerian painter Muraina Oyelami (b. 1940), whose work takes inspiration from Yoruba culture, sold well with Extended family II, signed and dated 1980, selling for its top estimate of £1,500.

London-based Iraqi artist Dia Al Azzawi’s sculpture Blue Face almost doubled its low estimate

Wimbledon Auctions, London

Prints of three bare-knuckle ghters punched above their weight when they sold for £4,800, soaring past their guide price of £100-£150 at the south London auctioneer’s recent sale.

e trio, depicting “Gabriel, e Su olk Champion”, “Cooper e Gipsy” and “ omas Cribb” were all by Isaac Robert Cruickshank (1789-1856) and came from the collection of late television quiz show host William G Stewart (1933-2017).

Three boxing prints punched well above their weight at auction in London

Chiswick Auctions

One of the earliest works on English viticulture published in 1666, and a rare survivor of the Great Fire, sold for £13,860, beating its estimate of £3,000£4,000 at the London auction house’s Roisin Road saleroom.

It was written by John Evelyn (16201706) under Charles II’s gardener’s instruction and includes a correction in ink possibly by the author’s hand.

The pioneering book on wine making survived the Great Fire of London in 1666

e book, titled e English Vineyard Vindicated, o ers advice on growing vines in the English climate at a time when England was a major consumer of wine but a very minor producer. It was published by John Crook ‘at the Ship in St. Paul’s Church-Yard’ just before the Fire of London ravaged the area.

Kinghams Auctioneers, Moreton in Marsh

More than 100 gold coins from around the world, bought to a routine valuation in Banbury, shone at the Gloucestershire auctioneer’s sale on May 23 when it sold for £64,330 beating its guide price of £40,000.

A 1686

James II guinea was among the haul which came to light at a routine valuation

A William and Mary ‘Elephant & Castle’ guinea, dated 1689, sold for £1,400

Dating from the late 17th to 20th century, they included a James II guinea, dated 1686, which sold for a mid-estimate £1,400; and a William and Mary ‘Elephant & Castle’ guinea, dated 1689, which beat its low guide price of £1,100 to sell for £1,400. e logo of an elephant, or elephant and castle, belonged to the Royal Africa Company which struck the coin. Kinghams’ Steven Bruce said: “It was the best collection I have seen in my long career. With the strong market for gold, and particularly rare coinage, the collection attracted international interest from collectors and investors.”

Bellmans, Billingshurst

An early portrait by the Newlyn artist Dod Procter (1890-1972) sold for £88,000 at the West Sussex auction house, beating its pre-sale estimate of £15,000-£25,000 and setting the second highest auction price ever recorded for the artist.

Dated c.1915, Girl in a Black Dress was acquired by the vendor’s grandparents on holiday in Cornwall.

Dod Procter (née Shaw), along with her husband the painter, illustrator and designer Ernest Procter, was part of the second generation of Newlyn School artists and trained under Stanhope Forbes.

She was known for her images of young women, often on the cusp of womanhood, with the model for one of her most famous works Morning being a Newlyn sherman’s 16-year-old daughter, Cissie Barnes.

e current auction record for a work by Procter stands at £115,000 for a portrait titled Girl with a Parrot that sold for £115,000 at Christie’s in 2015.

Clarke & Simpson Auctions, Campsea Ash

A 17th-century London delftware wet-drug jar hammered at £5,800, trouncing its presale guide price of £600-£800 at the Su olk auctioneer’s sale on May 22.

17cm tall and probably made in Southwark; its label inscription O.MASTICHIN is for Oleum Mastichinum, a liniment made by heating mastic in a mixture of rose-oil and wine.

ese tin-glazed ceramic jars would have been used by apothecaries to store medicinal preparations and ingredients.

With their decorative Latin labels and hand-painted patterns they were functional and designed to impress customers and fellow medical practitioners. Wet jars held liquid preparations, apparent by their spout and, usually, a handle at the back.

Dry jars held dry ingredients and di er in having a cylindrical shape tapered at top and bottom.

Girl in a Black Dress by Dod Procter sold for £88,000 at Bellmans

Delftware jars are popular among collectors, as the sale of this wet-drug version showed

AUCTION Sales round-up

The now washed football shirt sold to a private collector

Stacey’s Auctioneers, Rayleigh

A once bloodied football shirt signed by West Bromwich Albion defender John Wile sold for £11,000, scoring well beyond its guide price of £1,400-£1,800 at the Essex auction house’s recent sale.

A signed photo showed John Wile’s badly-cut head after the clash

TW Gaze, Diss

A late 19th-century lighthouse wall clock sold for 10 times its low estimate of £800 at the Norfolk auction house after sparking maritime interest from around the world.

Made by Brockbank & Atkins of London for Anvil Point o the Dorset coast, the clock’s subsidiary dial, numbered 1 to 16, regulated the lighthouse’s “character” (or sequence and frequency of ashes).

When Anvil Point was built by Trinity House in 1881 its light was fuelled by a para n vapour burner, with a fog signal blasted from a small cannon every ve minutes.

The clock’s subsidiary dial, numbered 1-16, helped regulate the lighthouse signal’s frequency

Anvil Point converted to mains electricity in 1960 when the old fog signal was replaced

e shirt was worn in the 1978 FA Cup semi- nal against Ipswich Town which saw a clash of heads between Wile and the Su olk team’s Brian Talbot. Wile sustained a bloodied and bandaged head, while a gash above Talbot’s right eye left him badly dazed and nished the game for him.

Ipswich went on to win 3-1, securing a rst trip to Wembley, and later FA Cup success. An iconic photograph, which was part of the lot, was signed by Wile who made 728 appearances for Peterborough United and the West Midlands side before becoming a manager for both clubs.

Dawsons, Maidenhead

A full-hunter pocket watch given to Winston Churchill by Herbert Henry Asquith to thank him for “crossing the oor” when he defected from the Conservative party to join the Liberals, sold for £76,000 at the Berkshire auction house’s sale on May 23 – more than tripling its low estimate of £20,000. Churchill quit the Tories in 1905 lending support to Asquith and his bid to become the rst Liberal Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. To thank him, Asquith presented the future wartime leader with a watch inscribed: To Winston with gratitude H. H. Asquith Xmas 1905.

The pocket watch was a gift to Britain’s most famous Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill

C&T Auctions, Ashford

One of the most coveted Star Wars gures in history – a caped 10cm (4in) Jawa by Palitoy – which came with an original price tag of £1.25 in 1978 –sold for a mid-estimate £25,000 at the Kent auctioneer’s recent sale.

Only around a dozen ‘carded’ Palitoy examples –with an early vinyl cape (before it was upgraded to a cloth version) are known to exist. e rst sold on eBay in 2013 for £11,300. Since then another sold for £18,000 in 2017, with a near-mint example making a record £22,000 at Aston’s in Dudley in 2020.

The vinyl hooded Jawa figure is the holy grail of Star Wars memorabilia

Waxing lyrical

David Harvey discovers something to really write home about in a magni cent library desk by the famous 19th-century maker Gillows

Over the last half century I have been lucky to have had the luxury of studying many majestic pieces by Gillows of Lancaster and London. But, in 50 years, the most gratifying of all may be this magni cent library secretaire cabinet. It is one of a family of desks made between 1780 and 1800 which was described by Gillows as the “best it was possible to produce”.

While Gillows were quick to draw inspiration from the fashionable patterns published from 1754-1762 by omas Chippendale – and his rival cabinetmakers –

Above e library

they were also adept at developing their own pieces, like this highly functional library desk, that was to become a masterpiece of the rm’s cabinet-work.

In common with the satinwood library table made in 1790 by John Savage of Gillows for the London shop, the desk is completely free standing and would have commanded an important position in the centre of a gentleman’s library.

Right Strong and important looking library tables of this pattern were among the most expensive pieces made by

secretaire cabinet is the work of the legendary maker Gillows of Lancaster and London

Gillows in the late 18th century

a few women) would have completed a European Grand Tour, returning home with books, pictures, artefacts and works of art, all destined for the collector’s library. Visitors would marvel at both the collection and the beautiful desk taking centre stage in the room that housed it.

It was the best word-of-mouth advertising. On seeing a desk, the wealthy visitor would have been keen to order one for himself, custom made to best suit his individual requirements.

Before long these strong and important-looking library tables, with sliding partitions, lettered compartments and secret (or private as Gillows called them) drawers, were among the most expensive pieces made by them in the late 18th century.

Quirky details

While several versions of the model exist, each sharing the same basic outline, they vary in the details and con guration. For example, some are equipped with an easel top, others have a double rising top, while some have a xed top.

e price would have also been adjusted according to the complexity of the nished article. Features such as a double rising easel, or optional extras like Bramah locks and well-crafted brass handles would have added to the overall price. ese are among the quirks which are typical of the Gillows’ house style and help us to determine whether the piece is by the famed Lancashire furniture makers in the absence of a signature or stamp.

Quality lock

A popular feature of many of these Gillows desks was a frieze drawer with alphabet-inscribed medallions inlaid on lidded compartments. Its double ratchet-supported top

Sir Walter Scott

Gillows’ style the desk unravels to house a host of drawers and secret compartments

Above right Sir Walter Scott’s library with a similar desk by Gillows, image public domain

Below right e lock to the secretaire drawer is stamped “J Bramah” and “Patent” under the crown of George III

Gillows’ most famous desk of this type was supplied in 1810 for Sir Walter Scott’s Edinburgh house. Its cost of “about 30 ready money” was funded from the success of his poem The Lady of the Lake, and inspired by one that he had seen at Rokeby Hall, in Yorkshire.

After his visit, Scott wrote to his host, John Morritt: “You know I fell in love with your Library table and now that The Lady has put crowns into my purse I would treat myself unto the like.”

In 1935, two secret drawers were discovered containing letters Scott had written to his wife.

In her book Gillows of Lancaster and London, Susan Stuart describes other similar examples of the desk made for several patrons including William Egerton at Tatton Park, Sir William Stanley of Hooton and his kinsman, Mr Thomas Stanley, Thomas Gibbons of Wolverhampton and the Earl of Shrewsbury.

It appears an example may also have been made for Shavington Hall in Shropshire.

and ‘turn down’ front, with quadrant supports, is similar to one featured in Gillows’ 1798 Estimate Sketch Book compiled between 1784 and 1932.

Another sign the desk is the work of Gillows comes in the use of one of the most sophisticated locks of the day. Invented in 1784 by Joseph Bramah, the mechanism consisted of a round lock mechanism operated by a tubular key. e secretaire drawer’s lock is stamped “J. Bramah” and “Patent” under a crown for George III; such locks were used by Gillows between 1784-1797. e locks to the rest of the drawers are stamped “Stansbury Patent”.

‘While the piece is unstamped, I date it to c.1785 and am in no doubt that it is by Gillows. One of the reasons for this attribution is the quality of the timbers used which are of the richest mahogany throughout’

EXPERT COMMENT David Harvey

Technical genius

Part of the genius of Gillows’ furniture lies in the technical know-how to make cabinets where everything works smoothly – functions which perform just as well today. is desktop has a doublerising top opening to a double easel, allowing books to be rested on it from both the front and the back – a feature found more frequently on architect’s tables during the 18th century.

Gillows facilitated the movement using expensive solid brass ratchets seen below right.

Another solution to the smooth running of the elaborate secretaire drawer was solved by special steel rollers, or wheels, set into the carcass on the rails. e problem of the top of the drawer catching on the inside of the carcass was also cannily solved using ingenious brass barrel rollers. In a similar vein, the baizelined tray is able to retract smoothly by the addition of wheels on the undercarriage.

Best timber

While the piece is unstamped (the rm started selectively stamping its pieces ‘GILLOWS LANCASTER’ about 1788-1789), I date it to c.1785. Further evidence it is the work of the famous maker can be seen in the quality

Above left e desk illustrated in the Gillows’ records was made by

Above right e desk top has a double rising top opening to a double easel

Below e cabinet is as glorious when viewed from behind

Below right Costly solid brass ratchets are used to facilitate the mechanism

of the timbers used which are of the richest mahogany throughout. Also typical of Gillows are the secret boxes, all with original green material pulls hidden behind these compartments. Once inside the desk, the owner could remove the sunken, hidden compartments using a cutout on the inside of the box to gain purchase on it.

Covering the compartments is a baize-lined slider with a second easel stand, as well as sections for ink wells and quill pens, with thumb pulls on the front corners.

Gillows’ trademarks

Such are the hallmarks of this family of desks made by Gillows in the last quarter of the 18th century and considered in detail by Susan Stuart in her two-volume book Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840. Its likeness, both in aesthetic and relative measurements, can also be seen in the illustration from our personal copies from the Gillows’ archive, and was made by William Cook who is listed in Gillows Apprentices, Workmen and Tradesmen, vol. II.

Finally, the beauty of the design is evident from both back and front. Consider the desk’s back view (left) to see how perfectly nished it was in the round and usable on all sides according to direction of light in one’s library.

David Harvey is the owner of Witney-based W R Harvey & Co. (Antiques) Ltd. For more details and to view the archived catalogues go to the website www.wrharvey.com

William Cook

ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER the Janet and David Moor collection

SAL EROOM SPOTLIGHT

A stunning collection of

early

oak, including ornately-carved Elizabethan pieces, goes under the hammer in Doncaster this month

Asingle-owner collection of period oak amassed over half a century is up for sale at Wilkinson’s auctioneers this month in a two-day sale. Put together by the Kent couple Janet and David Moor, some 745 lots, including 450 items of furniture, demonstrate their maturing taste and appreciation of the period’s ornate inlays, beautiful carving and rich patina.

For the collector of early oak, the sale represents a cross-section of furniture that would have graced an Elizabethan home – with a bu et, livery, co er and court cupboard all featuring in the two-day sale. e design and decoration of early 17th-century furniture were as much about displaying wealth and status as they were about functionality. Pieces were robust, heavily carved, and designed to impress, re ecting the social and economic standing of the household. e in uence of the Renaissance and the increasing availability of imported materials and craftsmen led to ever more elaborate and varied designs.

Co er and mule chest

Among the highlights is a late-Elizabethan arcaded co er decorated with marquetry and vast displays of carving techniques. Chests and co ers were the earliest type of receptables for storing clothes, linen, valuables, documents or household utensils. e piece has two locks, an early security measure as each would have required a di erent key and keyholder both of whom had to be present when the co er was opened.

From the same collection comes a Charles II (1660-1685) marquetry mule chest (below left) which also took pride of place in the Moor family home. In use from 1590, the word ‘mule’ may have been coined to suggest a hybrid stage in the development of the chest of drawers. e term may also, as others have suggested, suggested the chest was a place to keep horse-related items.

e incorporation of one or more drawers in the lower section of a lidded chest was a sensible step in reducing the inconvenience of access to clothes, books or other items which might be otherwise di cult to reach or nd.

Elizabethan bu et

e couple’s collection also includes this late-Elizabethan bu et with unusual geometric inlay channels to the central shelf and armorial beasts supporting the other shelves.

e dresser, or bu et, with its cupboard, frieze drawers and open shelves, evolved as a furniture type in the areas now known as France and the Netherlands from the late Gothic period through the Renaissance.

Above A late Elizabethan arcaded co er displaying a variety of carving techniques is one of the sale highlights. It has an estimate of £14,000£18,000 at this month’s sale

Below right e Janet and David Moor collection also includes a mid 17th-century oak splay-fronted court cupboard with bulbous supports. It has an estimate of £3,000£5,000 at the same sale

Below left A superb Charles II (1660-1685) marquetry mule chest also took pride of place in the Moor family home. It has an estimate of £6,000-£8,000

It would have take pride of place in the gallery or antechamber of its aristocratic owner as a vehicle for displaying important gold and silver plate, ceramics and glass which would have been decoratively arranged during o cial receptions and banquets.

In the less o cial contexts of a garde-robe or bedroom, where one often ate, the dresser also functioned as a place on which to put ewers and basins, or other vessels, used for more private dining. Over time the bu et evolved into a court cupboard.

‘The design and decoration of early 17th-century furniture were as much about displaying wealth and status as they were about functionality. The pieces were robust, heavily carved, and designed to impress’

Court cupboards

Also on o er this month is a ne example of a mid 17th-century court cupboard (below left). Such items were rst seen in early 16th-century Tudor homes and great halls. Like the bu et, the ‘cup-board’ would have been used primarily for display. e origin of theterm ‘court’ is much disputed, but possibly comes from the Norman word for ‘short’ , since most examples stand lower thanthe average eye-level.In inventories, they are usually noted as having arich cupboard cloth lying on top. ere would be no point in providing this if it were above eye-level.

Randle Holme (1627-1699) in his Academy of Armoury (1649) refers to the necessities of a dining room which must include “…side tables, or court cubberts, for cups and Glasses…Spoons, Sugar Box, Viall and Cruces for Viniger, Oyle and Mustard pot…”

Useful livery

e substantial Moor collection includes a late 16th-century Englishlivery (above), which, while lacking any pomp and ceremony, retains itsrich colour and patina. Early inventories frequently note a livery cupboard used in the bedchamber, and as Victor Chinnery states in Oak Furniture the British Tradition it would have housed the ‘livre’ or ‘livery’ , this was an allowance of candles, food and drink (probably spiced wine or beer and ead) given to all the family, guestsand retainers for sustenance during the night. Most would have been a partially-enclosed standing cupboard suitable to hold both food and related utensils such asewer and basin.

Elaborate carving

The work of the carver was probably the most important element in furniture decoration during the first century of the English Renaissance, (1530-1630). Motifs included classical and heraldic details and botanical elements. Some carvings took the form of human figures or terms (properly called caryatids in the female form, and atlantes in the male), as well as animals such as lions and birds. Mythical creatures including chimaerae or gryphons also appear.

AUCTION fact file

WHAT: Period oak, treen and country furniture, featuring the Janet and David Moor Collection. Where: Wilkinsons Auctioneers Ltd., The Old Saleroom, 28 Netherhall Road, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN1 2PW. When: June 15-16 from 11am.

Viewing: June 13-14 from 10-4pm and on each day of the sale from 9-11am, or by private appointment.

We asked Wilkinson’s Matt Gibson for his sale highlights IN MY OPINION...

Do you have a favourite piece?

In our minds one of the star lots has to be the stunning, late-Elizabethan arcaded coffer, with its paintwork, marquetry and different carving techniques. It is both a feast for the eyes and a tactile piece –something David is more aware of now with his advancing years. The couple also amassed a fine collection of Nailsea glass which will appear in our next decorative arts sale later in the year.

How did the collection come about?

Janet’s disjointed childhood as a navy child saw her crave stability and the comforts of a solid home and family of her own. David’s farming background, meanwhile, gave him an appreciation of craftmanship and natural materials. After their first purchase of an antique oak coffer it was inevitable they would build an impressive collection. Having traded up, buying the best they could, it is wonderful to see how their tastes matured and developed, as most collections do. Before the internet, researching a passion like period oak would have relied on books and an eye for quality, something Janet and David obviously had in spades.

Where

are you expecting interest to come from?

Above left e Moor collection’s late 16thcentury English livery retains a rich colour and patina. It has an estimate £8,000-£12,000

Above right e sale also includes an example of 17th-century stumpwork (raised embroidery). It has an estimate of £8,000£12,000

The couple provided a lot of receipts which came from local purchases in Kent and further afield in Wales and the Cotswolds. We’re expecting interest from the north of England and North Yorkshire in particular, as a fair number of pieces, especially the inlaid ones, are from that area. We’re looking forward to seeing our regular customers and welcoming new period oak buyers who want to start or add to a collection.

LOTS to TALK ABOUT

Known to millions for his iconic Chinese Girl, another work by Vladimir Tretchiko is up for sale this summer, writes Catherine Southon

The painting Chinese Girl – nicknamed ‘ e Green Lady’ – by the self-taught South African artist Vladimir Tretchiko (1913-2006) is arguably one of the most famous art prints of the 20th century, selling in its millions in the 1950s and ‘60s from retailers including Woolworths.

It subsequently hung in millions of homes around the world and remains the highest-selling art print in history, an accolade that earnt Tretchiko the reputation of the “king of kitsch”.

Chinese Girl was adored by the public, but was dismissed by the art critics. But in reality Tretchiko was one of the rst artists to realise the commercial potential of mass producing his work, developing a style characterised by strong, clean images and bright colours.

Today, he is very much in vogue with younger generations who champion the artist as a “people’s” painter and well ahead of his time. In 2013, Chinese Girl painting sold at auction for a record-breaking £982,050.

Russian born

Tretchiko was born in Kazakhstan of Russian parents who moved to China after the Russian Revolution. In his early years, he displayed a passion and talent for art, but his family’s circumstances forced him to seek employment as a window dresser and apprentice in a photography studio to support himself.

Despite these challenges, his determination to pursue art never wavered. In 1934, Tretchiko left China and embarked on a journey that would shape his artistic career. He travelled extensively throughout Asia, living in Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia.

ese experiences exposed him to diverse cultures,

traditions and artistic in uences which would later manifest in his artwork.

Top right e painting was exhibited in the Iziko Gallery in Cape Town in 2011; a press report features a photograph of the real Barbara alongside the painting

Above right Tretchiko gave Barbara a pencil sketch of the painting which is included in the single lot

Left Vladimir Tretchiko (1913-2006), Barbara, 1976, oil on board, has an estimate of £10,000£15,000 at Catherine Southon’s auction in July

Below right Tretchiko ’s Chinese Girl, nicknamed ‘ e Green Lady’, sold for £982,050 in 2013, image courtesy of Bonhams

Tretchiko was fascinated by exoticlooking women, painting their portraits in bright and vibrant colours.

Fleeing Singapore, when it was invaded by the Japanese in 1942, he landed in South Africa, and it is here he painted the famous Chinese Girl which was displayed at the Salon Exhibition in Johannesburg.

Barbara in the bath

While Chinese Girl was his best-known work, Tretchiko ’s output was proli c. In the 1970s, in Port Elizabeth, he met 33-year-old Barbara Layne at an exhibition and asked if she would model for him.

A bath was chosen as the background in which Barbara had to sit on and o for two weeks. While the nished painting is in a private collection, Tretchiko gave Barbara an oil on board study as a gift, signed in pencil ‘To Barbara my model for painting Barbara, V. Tretchiko Cape Town Sept 1976’. He also gave her a pencil sketch of the same size.

Barbara bequeathed the oil study, pencil drawing and a number of Tretchiko -signed books to her cousin.

Despite the time she had to spend submerged, the encounter between artist and model was a cordial one.

In an article in the newspaper e South Coast Sun, Barbara described Tretchiko as: “A funny sort of guy, with a strong Russian accent. I noticed he wasn’t listening to a word I was saying but looking at my face from every angle!”

e painting will appear in Catherine Southon’s July auction with an estimate of £10,000-£15,000.

Find further details at www.catherinesouthon.co.uk

‘While Chinese Girl was his best-known work, Tretchikoff’s output was prolific. In the 1970s, in Port Elizabeth, he met 33-year-old Barbara Layne at an exhibition and asked if she would model for him’

The Easiest Way to Explore, Find and Buy Valued Objects.

Our marketplace gathers valued objects from auction houses around the world – and delivers them safely to your door. It’s the easiest way to explore, find and buy Valued Objects.

auctionet.com

Steeped in HISTORY

Nothing is as quintessentially English as a summer tea party. Antique Collecting lifts the lid on the history of the beverage and the evolution of the teapot, many examples of which can be seen at his month’s Treasure House Fair

Tea’s remarkable journey to popularity in Britain is a tale of global trade, evolving social customs and shifting cultural preferences. Central to most drinkers’ experience was (and remains) the teapot – a remarkable vessel which was at the heart of the British ceramics revolution, even sparking the arrival of porcelain to the UK. is month’s Treasure House Fair in London pays homage to the styles and makers at the centre of the phenomenon.

e rst trade in tea can be linked to the British East India Company, established in 1600, which over centuries played a crucial role in creating a market with Asian countries, particularly China.

One of the rst advertisements for the new brew was seen in the same newspaper which reported the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658.

Issue 432 of e Gazette includes the exhortation: at Excellent, and by all Physitians approved, China Drink, called by the Chineans, Tcha, by other nations Tay,

Above An English delft chequered teapot, Bristol or London, c. 1740, on o er at this month’s Treasure House Fair, from the London dealer E & H Manners

alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness-head, a Cophee-house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange, London.

Samuel Pepys

In 1660, the diarist Samuel Pepys describes trying it for the rst time, writing: “I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before.”

In 1678, the East India Company began importing tea as an article of trade when 4,713 pounds weight were unloaded in London.

But tea drinking was said to have really taken hold in the UK as a fashionable and respectable social ritual when Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, demanded a cup of tea when she arrived in Portsmouth in 1662. She was told there was none and then refused the glass of warm ale o ered to her in disgust.

e beverage soon took hold, primarily consumed for its perceived medicinal bene ts, allegedly curing everything from gout to various social diseases, and as a status symbol among the upper class. Seven years after his rst cup, in 1667, Pepys found his wife “making of Tea…a drink which Mr Pelling the potticary tells her is good for her cold and di uxions.”

Early tea ware

Part of the attraction of tea drinking lay in the strange equipment it required. e ships that brought the tea from China also carried strange pots with spouts and cups and saucers of white porcelain or ne, hard, red pottery.

Tea was initially a luxury commodity, imported in small quantities and sold at exorbitant prices. e Chinese had been making porcelain for a thousand years but for the British it was like nothing they had ever seen and a departure from the coarse, home-made alternatives.

Soon, imported china became a status symbol, prized

even above silver sets which were considered unsuitable for the handle-less tea bowls from which tea was drunk.

Even those who could a ord a silver service preferred not to burn their ngers but to use porcelain tea bowls and saucers with the silver. Tea became such an element of fashionable living that some families chose to be shown drinking it in portraits surrounded by their utensils.

For those who couldn’t a ord either porcelain or silver, imported Chinese red stoneware from the province of Yixing was available. e earliest shape being globular with a short, straight spout. ere was clearly a growing need: in 1700, some 200,000 pounds weight of tea was being imported, by 1721 the gure had swelled ve-fold to a million pounds.

Fashionable shapes

Before the globular shape was taken up, early 18th-century

Above William Hogarth (1697–1764) A Family Party, 1730-1735, Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, public domain

Above right Teapot in the shape of a plum blossom, Chinese early 17th century, image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Below left Teapot, c. 1760, salt-glazed stoneware, image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

‘But

wasn’t until the 14th century when the widespread practice of steeping tea leaves in hot water demanded a purpose-made vessel was born.

The first Yixing teapots (named after the region in Jiangsu Province where they were made) were small individual teapots with the handle and spout design made from the area’s iconic red clay. The tea would have been drunk directly from the spout of the vessel, in the same way wine would have been imbibed.

Yixing teapots were introduced to Europe alongside stocks of tea imported from China by the Portuguese and Dutch during the 17th century.

As Europeans developed a fascination for the pots, Dutch potters began to emulate them. In a letter sent to the States of Holland and West Friesland 1679, two potters from Delft (Sammuel Von Eenhoom and Ary DeMilde) requested sole privilege to produce imitations: “We, associates, have discovered production techniques which make it possible to copy the teapots from the East Indies. We request permission to produce these pots for 15 years and to be the only ones to market them.” Not long after this, potters in England began to reproduce them, too.

tea drinking was said to have really taken hold in the UK as a fashionable and

respectable social ritual when Catherine

of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, demanded

a cup of tea

when she arrived in Portsmouth in 1662’

COLLECTING GUIDES Teapots through the ages

which was ordered to purchase 12,000 milk pots, 6,000 teapots and 45,000 cups and saucers, with no mention of a full service. As much as European makers dreamt of producing wares of the same quality, the best on o er was tin-glazed earthenware produced in Holland at Delft, which, while it looked the same, lacked the translucency, neness – and most importantly for tea wares – the strength for boiling water.

English porcelain

English potters were slow to develop porcelain compared to their European rivals. It was not until 1745 that porcelain is rst recorded as being manufactured at Chelsea, then a ames-side village.

By that date European makers, notably Meissen (see opposite) had discovered the secret of oriental porcelain, realising the inclusion of china clay (kaolin) and china stone (petunse) allowed it to be red to a very high temperature.

Long wait

Early Chinese tea wares were decorated in underglaze blue but before long coloured designs were introduced: the famille verte (green) palette being most used during the reign of Yung Cheng (1723-1735).

Much decoration was carried out to European speci cation. Armorials could be copied although an order often took several years to execute, even longer allowing for two lengthy sea voyages.

It is also notable that in the early 18th century the tea service as a whole was yet to be popular. e East India Company’s archive from 1719 shows three ships each of

Right omas Rowlandson (1756–1827) Ladies at Tea, 1790-1795, Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, public domain

Above A British delft punch pot, c. 1770, probably Liverpool, on o er at this month’s Treasure House Fair, from the London dealer E & H Manners

Left Charles Philips (1708–1747) Tea Party at Lord Harrington’s House, St. James’s, 1730, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, public domain

English makers of the rst generation were yet to grasp the secret, only able to make an imitation which could only be red to a lower temperature – known as “softpaste” porcelain, as opposed to Meissen’s “hard-paste”.

e glassy paste used at Chelsea was beautiful but not strong, it was however suited to the fashionable clientele of the borough. Bow was the rst manufactory to strengthen the paste by adding bone ash, which continued to be the point of di erence between European and English porcelain.

Worcester manufactory

Other factories grew up, most notably that of Worcester in 1751, established by a group of partners including the famous Dr Wall. eir formula for porcelain came from the short-lived Bristol factory of Benjamin Lund, and included soap rock, which was e ective against the rigours of boiling water. While Chelsea’s output was aimed at the wealthy, those of Worcester were aimed at the rising number of tea-drinking middle classes.

e rst true British hard-paste porcelain factory was set up by the Quaker chemist William Cookworthy at Bristol in 1765, thanks to the discovery of the necessary china clay and china stone in Cornwall. His patent in 1768 was a milestone in the history of British ceramics. In 1774, he transferred the patent to Richard Champion, a Bristol merchant, who established a successful but shortlived factory in his native city. After failing to extend the patent, the factory closed with the patent going to a group of Sta ordshire potters who founded the New Hall China Manufactory in 1782.

Changing shapes

By the early 18th century, pear-shaped and bulletshaped pots became popular with handles now made of fruitwood (apple or pear).

Hinged aps on the ends of the spout die out by the 1720s, as does the pear shape leaving the bullet in its circular form to dominate the second quarter of the 18th century. A very short-lived form was produced in the 1750-1760 period, during the last phase of the rococo: the inverted pear shape. With the introduction of neoclassicism there is a radical change in design, rst in

PORCELAIN’S SECRET REVEALED

To be able to produce comparable wares to that of the Chinese was the dream of every European potter; to many it became an obsession.

Rulers and noblemen longed to discover the secret of the prized ware from state-sponsored factories. One such, Augustus the Strong of Saxony, employed an alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger to come up with the formula.

Böttger was kept a virtual prisoner at the fortress stronghold of Meissen, outside Dresden, working under the supervision of Baron Von Tschirnhausen. In 1710, Böttger finally mastered true porcelain and the Meissen factory was born: the market for European teapots took off.

Soon Meissen was selling luxury porcelain pieces, including teapots, to the wealthiest Europeans. These pieces mostly imitated Chinese and Japanese styles but by the 1730s the influence of the European baroque and rococo designers began to be felt. Teapots tended to be of globular or pear shape with spouts in the form of dragons or other fabulous beasts, with handles in elaborate scroll or wishbone form - shapes that were to remain in fashion until the 1760s.

Above A gilt metalmounted Meissen globular teapot, c. 17251728, it has the blue crossed swords Meissen mark and the company’s monogram of KPM. It is on o er from E & H Manners at this month’s Treasure House Fair

Above Right A Meissen ‘Böttger’ porcelain teapot decorated in Holland, c.1715. Early Meissen porcelain was enamelled in Holland to imitate the rare and desirable Japanese Kakiemon porcelain. It is on o er from E & H Manners at this month’s Treasure House Fair

Below right A Meissen ‘Böttger’ porcelain ‘eagle’ teapot, c. 1720. e bird was signi cant to Augustus the Strong as it represented Poland’s highest order of chivalry, on o er from E & H Manners at the same fair moTreasure House Fair

COLLECTING GUIDES Teapots through the ages

Sèvres manufactory

The famous French factory to first produce soft paste porcelain was founded at Vincennes in 1740. By 1756, Louis XV was a major investor, spurred on by his mistress Madame de Pomadour who was devotee of their more opulent pieces.

Three years later the factory was re-established in Sèvres with the king, who granted the makers their famous crossed Ls mark, as its sole owner.

Under the direction of Jean-Claude Duplessis, the manufactory developed its own unique rococo style, stepping out of Meissen’s shadow to become a leading porcelain manufactory. It soon built a reputation for producing ornate wares for the domestic market, becoming an important source for diplomatic gifts across Europe and beyond.

Despite its different design styles, Sèvres porcelain is characterised by the use of ground colours in brilliant shades framing delicate, painterly cartouches of putti, flowers, fruits and animals.

Above left A French 18th-century soft paste Sèvres porcelain teapot, with the factory mark Sèvres and date-letters SS for 1795, on o er from Adrian Sassoon at this month’s Treasure House Fair

Left e teapot depicts two episodes in the story of Diana goddess of the Moon and the shepherd Endymion. e teapot has the painter’s mark k for Charles-Nicolas Dodin (1754-1803)

Above right A softpaste Sèvres porcelain tea service, 1758, on o er from Adrian Sassoon at this month’s Treasure House Fair

It is particularly known for its blue tones, namely bleu-lapi and bleu-céleste.

In 1769, after a deposit of kaolin was found near

Right A soft-paste Sèvres porcelain teapot and cover, 1763, on o er from Adrian Sassoon at this month’s Treasure House Fair

the 1760 to 1770s, which saw the drum shape come into vogue, then from the 1770s onwards there was a return to to the straight-sided oval. is proved to be extremely popular and steadily evolved through various eye-shaped, lozenge-shaped, and shaped oval cross sections, often featuring monograms, crests and coats of arms that were carefully engraved on the bodies of teapots.

Sta ordshire makers

Soon, rather than imitate imported Chinese tea ware, the British makers understood they could create a new market for their own wares which went far beyond the scope of their former rivals.

In 1791, East India Company announced an end to its once gargantuan imports of Chinese porcelain teapots. e lowering of tea prices also acted as a spur to consumption. Added to which the Industrial Revolution brought about signi cant advancements in manufacturing techniques, leading to the mass production of ceramics.

e era saw the emergence of Sta ordshire pottery, which revolutionised the teapot industry. One of the earliest was Josiah Wedgwood’s improved creamcoloured earthenware and unglazed black basalts, introduced in the 1760s.

Other makers entered the scene producing Derbytype soft paste and, in the 1790s, due to the experiments of Josiah Spode, bone china was produced aimed at the growing numbers of middle-class Georgian tea drinkers.

e company’s record books show the number of hollowware pieces made at Spode. Entries include an illustration of the shape, dimensions for both the thrower and turner, and the trade size of the object.

Above left is teapot, with its lion’s paw feet, is an example of English drabware, a type of Sta ordshire salt-glazed stoneware introduced in the 1720s. e teapot exempli es the variety of Sta ordshire wares available in the 18th century, image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Above A page from Spode’s pattern book showing an Etruscan tea service, image courtesy of the Winterthur Library Collection

Right e Betty Brown became a ubiquitous staple and is still used today, image Shutterstock

‘In 1791, East East India Company announced an end to its once gargantuan imports of Chinese porcelain teapots. The lowering of tea prices also acted as a spur to consumption. Not only were people drinking more tea they were drinking more of it in one sitting’

Change of shape

e early 1800s also saw the introduction of new styles. All teapots up to this point were, with only rare exceptions, of a small size. is was a direct result of the high price of tea. With the reign of George III two important changes occur. Firstly, with a reduction in the price of tea there is a marked increase in the size of teapots. Secondly, with the shape based on a classic oil lamp. is low broad shape is arguably the ideal for making a good cup of tea. e ‘rounded’ version of this type evolved steadily through to the mid-19th century with the ‘melon’ shape being particularly popular.

By the second quarter of the 19th century earlier forms started to be reintroduced. Particularly popular from the 1870s was the revival of the late 18th-century oval straightsided form. Most are easily distinguished from the originals by virtue of their sides tapering slightly, a feature which will not be found on the originals. By the end of the 19th century the so-called ‘Queen Anne’ style was most popular and continued to be so well into the 20th century.

Dealers at this month’s Treasure House Fair from June 27 to July 2 at the Royal Hospital Chelsea will be showcasing 2,000 years of teapots, including several of the models in this article. For more details about the event go to www.treasurehousefair.com

THE BETTY BROWN

By the reign of Queen Victoria, tea had become a ubiquitous staple in British households, and a new style of teapot emerged to match this quotidian utility. With her simple design, round curves, pert spout, ergonomic handle and dark brown glaze that hides tea stains, the Brown Betty is considered the quintessential British teapot.

The red clay used in making Brown Betty teapots is sourced locally from the Staffordshire region. This clay, known as “Etruria Marl,” possesses excellent heat retention properties, enhancing the flavor and aroma of the brewed tea. Once fired, the teapots are dipped in a Rockingham glaze, which gives them their characteristic brownish colour that helps hide tea stains and makes them more durable.

Your Let ters

is month’s postbag includes details of a most macabre book and praise for a toy soldier collection in Norfolk

Star letter

What a wonderful recent day out we had to Houghton Hall in Norfolk, one of this country’s true stately homes. So good I wanted to share it with readers.

It is currently home to the most amazing exhibition by Antony Gormley of some 100 life-size cast iron gures dotted around the grounds.

On a misty, early summer morning it was a haunting and memorable sight.

But for me the icing on the cake was the house’s huge display of toy soldiers – said to be the world’s largest private collection. Unlike the silent gures outside, these were re-enacting the continental wars of the 1700s and 1800s. Quite the contrast. Bill Ruthen, by email

As a sixtysomething male and “serious” collector, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so excited by Irita Marriott’s column on Tonka toys (Lots of Love, May issue). How it reeled me back to the sandpits of my boyhood. eir vibrant colour and indestructible build made them the reigning mega vehicles of the playroom. So much so I handed my eet down to my son (who went on to become a structural engineer) and then his son, now aged six. Long live the mighty Tonka! Geo Mycroft, Sunderland

Our star letter receives a copy of British Designer Silver by John Andrew and Derek Styles worth £75. Write to us at Antique Collecting magazine, Riverside House, Dock Lane, Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 1PE or email magazine@ accartbooks.com

Top right A book recounting the key points of the Red Barn murder is bound in the murderer’s skin

Above right Even Sta ordshire potters marked the chilling murder

Above left Antony Gormley’s life-size models are not the only ones worth visiting at Houghton Hall, image Houghton Hall

Below left Geo has happy memories of his Tonka toys

I know there has been some discussion on these pages of the infamous murder at Red Barn in the Su olk village of Polstead in 1827. As mentioned, William Corden was convicted of slaying his mistress Maria Marten and later hanged in nearby Bury St Edmunds where some 10,000 onlookers turned out to watch the execution.

It was on a recent visit to that town, speci cally a trip to its museum, Moyse’s Hall, that I came across a very ghoulish tome (above top).

It is a book bound in the skin of Corder created by the surgeon, George Creed, who anatomised him. Unbeknown to me, the practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy (binding books in human skin) peaked in the 19th century and was often carried out by surgeons. e book in question, which details the key characters and locations related to the murder, is inscribed: e binding of this book is the skin of the murderer William Corder taken from his body and tanned by myself in the year 1828, George Creed Surgeon to the Su olk Hospital

I am a devotee of many areas of collecting, but I can’t ever see myself taking an interest in this very macabre eld.

Graham Mays, Windsor, Berkshire

The answers to the quiz on page 52.

Q1 (b). Usually a six-pointed punched decoration on Salem furniture. Q2 (c). From about 1895. Some were very small with fanciful architecture known as ‘gingerbread’. Q3 (d). Often used to counter other optical effects. Q4 (a). Q5 (b).

Made using the knotted-pile technique. Q6 (c).

A pagoda is also an Indian Raj-era gold coin. Q7 (b). A Chopin can refer to a Scottish wine measure equal to one-and-a-half imperial pints. Q8 (f). A mullet is also a heraldic five-pointed star. Q9 (g). Hirame also refers to Japanese lacquer-work using gold or silver leaf. Q10 (i). A Wellington can also be a tall, narrow chest with many drawers that can be locked by a singlehinged flap.

Finally, Dredge saga is an anagram of Edgar Degas; Resets a gouger can berearranged to form the name of the artist Georges Seurat; Secret about Guv is an anagram of Gustave Courbet and A suave gourmet can be rearranged as Gustave Moreau.

COTSWOLD AUCTIONEERS

&

SPECIALISTS IN SINGLE-OWNER COLLECTIONS NATIONWIDE VALUATIONS & ADVICE

Jewellery | Watches | Silver | Ceramics | Glass | Decorative Arts

Paintings | Furniture | Clocks | Design | Books | Designer Goods

10-12 Cotswold Business Village, London Road, Moreton-in-Marsh, GL56 0JQ 01608 695695 enquiries@kinghamsauctioneers.com www.kinghamsauctioneers.com

A

LOTS of LOVE

superbly-crafted, 19th-century Cutch silver tray

Oomersi Mawji

Ia highly ornate, three-footed tray came our way at a recent sale. Although unstamped, its quality set it apart as the best of the best. It was richly decorated with hunting scenes of wild boar amid nely-chased foliate scrolls and rosettes. Even the feet were in the shape of recumbent camels.

So it was no great surprise when the hammer fell at £7,100 (because it wasn’t signed, we’d placed the estimate at £800-£1,200). Its intricate design and superb craftsmanship meant there was only one thing it could be – a piece of 19th-century Indian silver know as Cutch (or Kutch) and named after the district of Gujarat in western India where it originated.

As this sale proved, Cutch is increasingly sought after by collectors, many of them Indian nationals who are buying back quality pieces from around the world making it one of the most buoyant current markets.

Colonial market

Originally made by local craftsmen for the colonial market of the Raj, demand for the distinctive style soon grew –especially after it was featured in the Great Exhibition of 1851. To satisfy the booming export market, a centre built up around the Cutch capital of Bhuj to meet growing demand from the West. At this point nearly all the Cutch was made to echo European forms, with common pieces including tea sets, trays, goblets, beakers, ewers, mugs, candlesticks, card cases and casters.

In fact, at its height it was so popular even the English silversmiths such as Elkington & Co. began to emulate it.

e tray which we sold was more than likely the work of the Cutch maker Oomersi Mawji, considered by many to be the greatest Indian silversmith of the 19th century. Pieces by him and his workshop are particularly prized by collectors. Mawji was born into the Mochi or cobbler class and, like many of his peers, transitioned from decorating leather objects, such as shields, to silversmithing.

Top right e tray’s feet are crafted in the shape of recumbent camels

Above right e tray is decorated dramatically with wild boars escaping the huntsman’s arrow

Above e quality of the tray made it likely to have been the work of the Cutch silversmith Oomersi Mawji

Below Some, though not all, of Oomersi Mawji’s pieces are stamped

His talent was apparent from an early age and he went on to become the court silversmith to the Maharajah of Kutch. His trademark designs were intricate, densely-scrolling vines and animals including hunting scenes and gural handles in the form of snakes, elephants and lions, all produced in magni cent repoussé. Mawji was also fond of portraying dramatic struggles such as deer being chased by hounds, or elephants engaged in mortal combat.

Other makers

With his sons, Mawji ran the most successful workshop in India, signing their pieces “O.M” or “O.M BHUJ”. But Mawji was not the only sought-after silversmith working in Bhuj, a handful of others produced comparable-quality silver in the Cutch style, all using the same foliate design embellished with animals.

Only a few signed their pieces with their initials, look out for the work of Raghavji Mawji (it is not known if he was related to Oomersi) who stamped his work “MR BHUJ.” J. Manikrai was another Cutch silversmith who, with a number of fellow silversmiths, settled in Karachi after the area was struck by famine. e group soon established a Karachi-Cutch style where ornamentation is separated into panels often in the shape of arches. His work is signed “J Manikrai & Sons”.

Irita Marriott is an expert on a number of TV programmes including Antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Bargain Hunt. She also owns her own auction house in Derbyshire, for more details and sale dates go to www.iritamarriottauctioneers.co.uk

‘The tray which we sold was more than likely the work of the Cutch maker Oomersi Mawji, considered by many to be the greatest Indian silversmith of

the 19th century. Pieces by him and his workshop are particularly prized by collectors’

COLLECTING GUIDES Gilbert Spencer

BROTHERS AT ARMS

Long overshadowed by his famous brother, Stanley, the work of Gilbert Spencer is the focus of a new book and exhibition, including his wartime evacuation to the Lake Distract with the rest of the Royal College of Art. Artist and curator Deborah Walsh reports

When students returned to the Royal College of Art (RCA) in September 1940, they found it closed, its windows blown out, and a note on the door stating that it would reopen ‘in the near future, somewhere in the country’. Sta were adamant that it must continue despite National Service having signi cantly reduced student numbers, and the loss of tutors, including Paul and John Nash, Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden to employment as o cial war artists.

Above Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Protective Covering, 1941, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn Gallery

ree months later some 150 students and sta pitched up in the Cumbrian village of Ambleside to reopen the school. One of them was their professor of painting, Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979), 13 months the junior of his more famous brother, Stanley.

A new exhibition this summer at Abbot Hall in Kendal celebrates Gilbert’s six-decade career, for the most part of which he was viewed as one of the leading artists of his “golden” generation, and every bit on a par with his more illustrious sibling.

e good news for art collectors is artwork by the junior Spencer presents an enticing prospect. When Stanley’s e Cruci xion broke the £1m barrier at auction in 1990 (later selling for £1.75m in 2011), Gilbert’s record was just £5,000. Stanley’s record is now more than £6m, with Gilbert’s just £37,500 for a 1932 painting, Man at a Sluice Gateon the ames, on show at the exhibition.

Glittering set

e rural Lake District village was a far cry from Spencer’s inter-war years. After a spell with his brother at the Slade School of Art (where the school’s professor, Henry Tonks, described Stanley as “the most original mind of anyone we have had here”) Gilbert went on to teach at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

Here he mixed with a glittering set of artists, writers, and poets including TS Eliot, Virginia Wolf and Siegfried

Sassoon to whom he was introduced by the hostess and patron of the arts, Lady Ottoline Morrell, who helped Spencer to settle in the nearby village of Garsington.

When war broke out in 1939 Spencer was aged 48 and a senior RCA tutor commuting into London three days a week. At the time he and his wife, Ursula, were living with their young daughter, Gillian, in a 17th-century cottage in Upper Basildon. Life in the idyllic Berkshire countryside, which inspired so many of his landscapes, came to an abrupt end with the school’s relocation to the Lakes.

Initially students were billeted to the village’s two hotels: the Queen’s Hotel and e Salutation Hotel where

Above left Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)

e Cruci xion, sold for £1.75m in 2012, beating its guide price of £1m-1.5m, image courtesy of Christie’s

Above right Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979)

Shoeing ‘Orses, 1941, pencil, pen, ink and watercolour on paper, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn

Below Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Trench Digging, 1941, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn

‘The college would be based in Ambleside for the next five years and the clash of cultures is easy to imagine, with reports in the local newspaper describing the students “as being somewhat strangely garbed” with young men “sporting wild and woolly beards”’

Home Guard

Encouraged by a patriotic talk at the college by an Air Raid Precautions Officer from Liverpool, Spencer along with a number of others joined the local Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later dubbed the Home Guard. The citizen militia was for those men who were too young or too old to join the regular armed services (regular military service was restricted to those aged 18 to 41) and those in reserved occupations.

The war-time government had expected 150,000 men to volunteer but by the end of the war around 1.5 million recruits had signed up.

Launched without any staff, funds, or premises and initially poorly equipped with only shotguns and air rifles with knives or bayonets welded on the end, the LDV practised their own versions of military drill.

Gas works

In Ambleside the Dads’ Army was charged with defending the key positions in the area, including the water works and the gas works.

Spencer had previously joined the LDV at his home in Upper Basildon, Berkshire, and soon found himself, as he wrote: “patrolling the village reviving memories of my smartness and efficiency in the First War”.

Of his activities with the Grasmere Home Guard, he wrote: “No words can describe my own pride at being able to crawl a hundred yards without my behind showing above the skyline. I stormed the heights of Nabscar, helped restore the defences of Windermere when knocked down by the sheep, relived my moonlight walks in London patrolling the fells above the lakes below, and found myself shying live hand grenades at the side of Loughrigg.”

they were to remain for the next ve years. e clash of cultures between the artistic southerners and blu northeners is easy to imagine, with reports in the local newspaper describing the students ‘as being somewhat strangely garbed”, with young men “sporting wild and woolly beards”.

Under Principal Percy Jowett, Spencer was joined by teachers Percy Horton, Charles Mahoney and Francis

COLLECTING GUIDES Gilbert Spencer

Helps. Fred Brill was one of the painting students. e school of engraving was run by Malcolm Osborne, assisted by Robert Austin, with Richard Garbe running the school of sculpture, assisted by Herbert Palliser.

Making the best

If living arrangements were sometimes di cult, working conditions were even more challenging, with materials in short supply, freezing studios in a variety of converted buildings, and poor lighting.

Etching and engraving were taught in e Salutation, with painting on the second oor of the Queen’s Hotel. A particular hazard here was the resident mouse population, which ate paintings containing powdered egg. e Salutation was also used for architectural studies as well as lettering and calligraphy, although it was often so cold students worked in overcoats and woollen mittens, making it almost impossible to handle compasses, T-squares and calligraphy pens. A sculpture school was set up in a large unheated garage,

While the di culties were great, the achievements of the Ambleside years were also notable, emerging from the proximity of the various schools, breaking down barriers and encouraging a cross pollination of ideas and practices. Many of the students who emerged from these years went on to become highly successful professional artists and designers or in uential teachers. eir legacy continues in art schools throughout the country.

Hard times

Spencer and his family arrived later than the rest of the school necessitating a brief stay in the Queen’s Hotel over Christmas 1940. It was a miserable period, and he complained bitterly about the conditions which saw some 60 students sleeping “three to ve to a room with no re in bedrooms. No means of drying clothes if they get wet. No matron.” e Spencer family was con ned to bed with temperatures, with Gilbert required to bring their food from e Salutation or cook on the re in their room.

e situation didn’t last. While students made the best of the local hotels, the Spencers were soon invited to stay at Ladywood, the Grasmere home of the academic and Wordsworth scholar Professor Ernest de Selincourt, with views over the south end of Grasmere lake, to Loughrigg and the great crags of Wetherlam beyond.

Alien surroundings

Despite the pleasant surroundings, Gilbert was not keen on his new lifestyle, early on writing: “We had three very happy weeks here although I don’t feel a bit at home in this lake district and the place is full of awful people.”

A year later he is no more reconciled to the new surroundings, writing: “We are all hating being up here with one accord and I am coming back to England for a month on Aug 20th”.

e Lake District clearly felt very alien to him; the landscape was too hard and the country people less tractable than he was used to.

Above Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Trees at Garsington, mid 1920s, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn, Abbot Hall

Below right Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Girl in Yellow (probably eodosia Townshend), 1920, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn, Abbot Hall

However, by January 1943 he writes with a more positive note: “We are getting through the winter excellently although there is little to do but paint, go for walks and sleep”. He later concedes that, “Slowly I disciplined myself to take an interest in the life and lovely surroundings of Ladywood. I never came to terms with the mountains and treated them as sky, but in this I managed to paint Redbank from the balcony and other landscapes from and around the garden.”

War record

It may be that much of Spencer’s disenchantment during the Ambleside years arose from a sense of futility. As he writes in his autobiography, at the same time he was creating a makeshift art school in Ambleside, not far away Liverpool was in ames.

It may have caused him to re ect on his own war record in WWI when both he and his brother, Stanley, had served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, initially at the Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol before being drafted to the Macedonian front, serving in Salonika and later transferred to serve on hospital ships in the Mediterranean, and then to North Africa for the duration of the war.

While in Ambleside the Imperial War Museum

commissioned a number of pieces from Gilbert. e rst, commissioned in 1941, was of Troops in the Countryside, followed by a portrait of John German. He also produced a series of 12 comic drawings of the life and times of the Home Guard. ese drawings, produced between 19401943, are satirical but a ectionate accounts by one who joined the LDV at its outset and represented it as a living experience much in the tradition of the 18th- and early 19th-century caricaturists.

After the war

Following his time in forced exile Gilbert’s peacetime career resumed. Between 1948 and 1950, he was appointed head of department at the Glasgow School of Art and in 1950 was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. e year that he was made a Royal Academician. In 1959, both his wife and his brother Stanley died.

Retrospective exhibitions of Gilbert’s work took place in 1964 at Reading and 1974 at e Fine Art Society in London. In 1970, at the age of 78, he moved to a farm cottage in Walsham-le-Willows in Su olk where he spent the remainder of his life. Today his work is in several public collections including the Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, Imperial War Museum and Manchester City Galleries.

Deborah Walsh is an archaeologist, curator and writer living and working in Ambleside. Gilbert Spencer, in association with the gallery Liss Llewellyn, is on at Abbot Hall, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9 5AL until June 29. For more details go to www.lakelandarts.org.uk

Above Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Ploughed Land Garsington, 1923, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn, Abbot Hall

Below right RCA student Gordon Ransom’s mural of Ambleside Rushbearing which can still be seen today in Ambleside’s St Mary’s church, image public domain

Bottom right Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Cookham Barns, 1925, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn Gallery, Abbot Hall

SOCIAL LIFE

Acceptance of the RCA as part of Ambleside village life evolved gradually, with theatrical performances by artists helping to win over the inhabitants. When the play Ladies in Retirement, a thriller based on a real murder that took place in the village in the 1880s, was staged by the student’s theatre group it was a roaring success.

In fact, the college’s annual exhibition of 1941 attracted 1,000 visitors, far more than at its pre-war London showings; the number doubled in 1942.

Mural paintings appeared in a number of local buildings, including one in St Mary’s church in Ambleside by Gordon Ransom depicting the Ambleside Rushbearing which used local children as models.

Inevitably the students spent much time in the local hostelries. The White Lion, across the road from The Queen’s Hotel was much favoured after Sunday dinner. In the summer the students walked, cycled and bathed in the lakes. By the time peace had come to western Europe and the students of the RCA were preparing for their return to London they had become an accepted and welcome part of village life. They had brought colour to the grey Ambleside streets, painted their way into Lakeland folklore and would be remembered with a wry smile, for many years to come.

‘Gilbert also produced a series of 12 comic drawings of the

life and times

of the

Home Guard. These drawings, produced

between 1940-1943, are satirical but affectionate accounts and represented as a living experience much in the tradition of 18th-century caricaturists’

COLLECTING GUIDES Gilbert Spencer

Q&A

We asked art specialist Paul Gough, the author of a new book on Gilbert Spencer, for his insights into the artist and his relationship with his more famous sibling

Q

A

in his paintings and drawings.

There is a danger to think that Stanley always eclipsed Gilbert but that was not the case, nor how they saw it.

In the 1920s, critics and reviewers regarded them as very distinctive painters and rarely wrote them up as “the Spencer brothers”, just as Paul and John Nash were invariably reviewed as a collective but regarded as individual talents.

In the 1930s, when Stanley’s domestic travails aroused public criticism (Hilda divorced him after he fell in love with, and later married, Patricia Preece, an openly gay woman who refused to leave a same-sex relationship to be with him), Gilbert was considered the “gentle, placid painter of well observed landscapes”, unlike his “eccentric and difficult brother”.

QHow broad were his skills and how did they change over time?

AGilbert was remarkably versatile as a landscapist, portrait painter, muralist and inventor of complex –often enigmatic – figure compositions.

What is most compelling about the work of Gilbert Spencer?

I admire his sheer range and variety of output as a painter, illustrator, writer and academic.

The quiet, poetic realism of his landscapes, and the lyrical and idyllic sensibility of his mid-period (1950s in particular), underpinned his natural empathy for those who worked the land.

Gilbert’s renditions of farm machinery, carts, and wagons displayed a real understanding of the structures of agriculture, its intrinsic architecture, but not in a mournful or nostalgic way – he was too robust a painter to become teary-eyed.

He was realistic about the arduous business of rural labour, and strongly empathised with the steadiness and skill of the agricultural worker. No other English landscape painter could paint chickens, hens, and cockerels so brilliantly – poultry in motion.

However, it was not all wistful pastoralism, he was also an astute portraitist.

Q

Describe the relationship between the siblings Stanley and Gilbert.

A They were at times the dearest of friends (“chief companions”) but at times also rivals in art and in love; they were both pursuing Hilda Carline in the early 1920s. Despite Gilbert’s early advantage, Stan relentlessly courted Hilda, delivering the knockout line: “It’s no good: she prefers me”.

Following the rebuff, Gilbert enmeshed himself in the artistic circle of firstly Carline’s Hampstead and later Garsington Manor.

He fathered an illegitimate son, Peter (much to the astonishment of the sexually naive and inexperienced Stanley) who was to make many shadowy appearances

Above left Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979)

Japp’s Farm, sold for £8,750 in 2012, image courtesy of Bonhams

Above right Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Trees at Garsington signed (lower right), oil on canvas, estimated at £3,000-£5,000 sold for £5,800 in 2018, image courtesy of Mallams

Right Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) Garsington Roofs, sold for £22,500 in 2014, image courtesy of Bonhams

In 1920, at the invitation of Henry Lamb, he visited Dorset and seemed to find his vocation, working long hours en plein air, exposed to the shifting light and graceful topography of the county.

At this point, Stan also recognised the skills of his younger brother, with Lamb warning him “Watch out, the young ‘un is catching up on you.”

Stan rushed back to Cookham in 1920 to realise his visions; Gilbert never went back.

QDid Gilbert choose to make a career teaching?

AGilbert emerged as his own man and painter in the 1920s and 1930s, rarely reviewed alongside Stanley, but regarded as an emerging force in landscape and portrait painting, which was recognised by his appointment in the mid-1930s as professor of painting at the RCA.

Like many professional painters at the time, he

regarded teaching as a means of sustaining a living, meeting other artists, and nourishing the academy. Some of his students went on to become the next generation of academicians. Although to be truthful, my book reveals he was a somewhat reluctant teacher as it held him back from his painterly passions, including his mural work of the 1930s.

AQHow does his wartime experience compare with that of Stanley?

Stanley was commissioned by Kenneth Clark’s War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) while Gilbert joined the Home Guard putting his escapades at the heart of his paintings, exhibiting great strength as complicated figure compositions.

The largest of these, Grasmere Home Guard (also known as The Home Guard) is now in the Imperial War Museum and he was also commissioned to make drawings of notable individuals.

When his war work was toured during the conflict it received very favourable notices.

On balance, both painters saw the war as an interruption in the evolution of their art, even though it resulted in some memorable pieces.

AQWhat tips would you give collectors hoping to start a collection of Gilbert’s work?

Gilbert’s prices are still relatively modest, added to which he maintained a formidable work rate.

I am working on a complete catalogue of Gilbert’s oil paintings (for online release this summer) and have some 430 listed so far.

This suggests he completed one oil painting every fortnight during his most productive periods.

Gilbert also produced hundreds of drawings, many of which are available at reasonable prices. His oils are gaining in value and will continue to do so with the publication of my biography (the first publication since the Fine Art Society exhibition catalogue in 1974).

When the catalogue is completed and the shadow of Stanley (a perceived rather than an actual one) is lifted, Gilbert’s work will be ready for fuller

Above Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) e Man at Sluice Gate on the ames, 1932, image courtesy of Liss Llewellyn, Abbot Hall

Left One of a group of 11 Christmas cards, dated from the ‘30s to ‘60s, including two etchings signed by Gilbert Spencer and photolithographs in various sizes. Expected to make £150-£200, it sold for £470 this February, image courtesy of Che ns

assessment and appraisal.

I expect Gilbert’s paintings from the 1920s, including his period at Garsington, will gain in value. Works from this period, like Garsington Roofs (left), which sold in 2014 for £22,500, have a quality of light, assured painterly manner and adept touch that marks the artist out as unique.

Recent portrait drawings at auction are fetching between £100-200; prints are occasionally available as are his rather charming, limited-edition Christmas cards, produced from the 1930s.

Professor Paul Gough is a painter, writer and broadcaster and a regular speaker on the Spencer family. He is also Vice Chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth. His new book Gilbert Spencer: The Life and Work of a Very English Artist is published by Yale University Press priced £30.

‘Gilbert was realistic about the arduous business of rural labour. No other English landscape painter could paint chickens, hens, and cockerels so brilliantly – poultry in motion’

In the KNOWLES

ere’s a period drama going on in Derbyshire after Eric Knowles and the team discovered a treasure trove of country estate clothingincluding an aristocrat’s coronation robe

Great British country houses brim with history, with every new discovery

thrilling fans of royalty and TV’s Downton Abbey. None more so than at Ingestre Hall in Sta ordshire, the former home of the Earls of Shrewsbury, where spectacular period clothing, made to impress at court or prestigious royal occasions, has come to light.

e once Jacobean manor is now a conference centre but reminders of its past came tumbling back thanks to the newly-found regal robes which go under the hammer this month in Derbyshire.

Royal connection

e consignment of clothes o ers a glimpse of the elaborate attire worn by lords and ladies – and their servants – a century ago. Star of the show is an ermine robe which would have been handed down through the generations and worn at a number of the most prestigious events of the 20th century, including the coronation of George V in 1911, and George VI in 1937. Most recently it was likely worn by Lady Shrewsbury at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

As Lord High Steward of Ireland, her husband, the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury had a prominent role in the coronation procession and wanted to do it in style. e state chariot was restored for the occasion and new livery purchased for the footmen and coachman.

e robes the Lord and Lady wore were pieces of history in their own right with their style and decoration varying to denote the wearer’s rank.

e black spot pattern was determined by the title of its wearer as was the length of the train: duchesses’ robes have two-yard trains, marchionesses one and three quarters, countesses one and a half, viscountesses one and a quarter, and baronesses one.

As well as regal outerwear the newly-found collection includes a pair of early 20th-century lady’s court satin

bootees with a cut-out laced design and Louis heel, which may have been worn to the coronation of Edward VII in 1902.

Below stairs

Above right e Earl of Shrewsbury’s state chariot was restored for the 1953 coronation, here pictured outside Ingestre Hall, photo public domain

Left A robe worn at royal coronations is set for sale in Derbyshire, photo credit Hansons Auctioneers

Below Bootee-style ladies shoes, c. 1900, which may have been worn at the coronation of Edward VII in 1902

Below right Decorative livery from the Ingestre Estate is set to go under the hammer this month,

But elegance was not con ned to the wealthy. Servants were dressed to a standard, too. Working on an English estate for an esteemed aristocrat was considered a prime occupation. In a world of tough working conditions and strict social divides, it provided a good salary, security and prestige. Typically, room and board were covered and uniforms provided.

e treasure trove includes a 1930s footman’s wig; red velvet footman’s breeches with gold braiding and buttons featuring a coronet; a red footman’s waistcoat in heavy-duty cotton – also embellished in gold braiding and decorated with livery buttons – and a pair of footman’s slipper-type black leather shoes. An old newspaper stu ed into the toes is dated 1920.

Also set for auction are three pre-20th century coachman’s coats made in a chocolate brown, heavy-duty fabric. Each has gilt brass buttons, an attached cape and panels of alternating strips of red and brown.

Eric Knowles is a consultant with the Etwall-based auctioneers Hansons. e clothing will be o ered at its ne art auction on June 27 and expected to make around £1,000. For more details call 01283 733988 or email service@ hansonsauctioneers.co.uk

‘As

Lord High Steward of Ireland, the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury had a prominent role in the 1953 coronation procession and wanted to do it in style. The state chariot was restored for the occasion and new livery purchased for the footmen and coachman’

THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Furniture manuals and pattern books

Sofa so Good

Today’s collectors can learn much from furniture manuals of yesteryear, writes Professor Mark Westgarth, curator of a new exhibition on early pattern books

Collecting antique furniture has a long history. It has been hand-in-glove with the evolving discipline of furniture history since its inception in the early 19th century. 18th-century antiquarians, such as Horace Walpole (1717-1797) were among the earliest collectors of what was called at the time “ancient furniture”.

Such is the theme of an exhibition at the University of Leeds titled Part of the Furniture: the Library of John Bedford, on until December 21.

Bedford (1941-2019) began his career in the world of antiques with a stall in a Kensington antiques market in the 1960s, and went on to dominate the trade in London.

While accumulating knowledge through buying and selling antique furniture, over 45 years he also built up a remarkable library of books and manuscripts, dating from the 17th to the 20th century, focused mainly on British furniture and its history.

When he died in 2019, he gifted his library to the University of Leeds for readers and researchers to use and enjoy.

Above Henry Lawford e Cabinet of Practical, Useful and Decorative Furniture Designs, a colour-lithographed fold-out catalogue of sofa designs, 1855. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Leeds University Library

Above right Samuel Rush Meyrick (1783-1848) an engraving of bellows from the time of Elizabeth I, taken from Specimens of Ancient Furniture, 1836, credit Yale Center for British Art

Early collecting

During the early 1800s interest in collecting antique furniture expanded rapidly and historians began to direct their attention to the history of furniture. Specimens of Ancient Furniture (1836) by the English collector and scholar of arms and armour Samuel Rush Meyrick (17831848) is one of the earliest books on the subject. With its exclusive focus on furniture, it was considered a ground-breaking work at the time and was hugely in uential in its promotion of furniture as a subject of study.

Percy MacQuoid

By the early 1900s many more people were collecting and furnishing their homes with ‘Old English Furniture’ and wanted to learn more about its history.

Lavish and scholarly multi-volume dictionaries of furniture and furniture makers emerged, as well as scores of cheaper, practical books for more general audiences.

Many of the themes that continue to dominate furniture history were established in these early texts, including the categorisation of furniture by the reigns of English monarchs, such as Charles II, Queen Anne, George I, George II, which emerged in the 1870s.

In 1904, the furniture historian Percy MacQuoid (1852-1925) developed the classi cation focused on the principal woods used in furniture making: oak, walnut, mahogany and satinwood. ese early publications concentrated on furniture of the period 1680-1840, ignoring the machine-made productions and stylistic eclecticism of the Victorian era.

A key in uence for antique furniture collectors at the time was the pattern books produced by leading cabinetmakers and furniture designers of the late 18th century such as omas Chippendale (1718-1779) and omas Sheraton (1751-1806).

Furniture made by omas Chippendale in the 18th century is still among the most desirable antique furniture in the world. Chippendale was described by Christopher Gilbert (1936-1998), the leading Chippendale scholar of the post-war era, as “the Shakespeare of English cabinetmakers”. Chippendale’s book of furniture designs, e Gentleman and Cabinet-maker’s Director, was rst published in 1754, running to three editions by 1762, and helped to secure the ubiquitous ‘Chippendale Style’. Another book on display is by Robert Manwaring ( . 1760–66), who was a contemporary and imitator of Chippendale with a specialism in chairs. His 1765 book, e Cabinet and Chair-maker’s Real Friend and Companion, or, the Whole System of Chair-Making Made Plain and Easy, demonstrates the kind of chairs middle-

Above omas Sheraton (1751-1806), a design for a bed from e Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer’s Drawing-Book, London: T. Bensley, 1793, engraving. Yale Centre for British Art

Right Plate from Jacques Andouet du Cerceau (1511-1586)Divers desseins c.1545. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Leeds University Library

Below left Robert Manwaring ( . 17601766) plates from e Cabinet and Chairmaker’s Real Friend and Companion, 1765. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Leeds University Library

Below right omas Chippendale (1718-1779) e Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, London, 1754. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, University of Leeds

French influence

Another book on display is a rare 16th-century book of fanciful designs for furniture by the French Renaissance tastemaker, Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (c.1511-1586).

Born approximately 1511, Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was a French architect, designer and engraver known for his influential architectural publications, particularly his series of engravings titled Les plus excellents bastiments de France (The most excellent buildings of France).

Another of his works Furniture Design, 1565–1570 includes 73 etchings detailing beds, pedestals for busts, caryatid and terminal figures, doorways and cartouches. As an accomplished printmaker, du Cerceau’s designs were widely disseminated through his printed works, such as pattern books. His designs are characterised by elaborate carvings and decorations including floral motifs, mythological figures, and geometric patterns.

class English families might have bought and used in the 18th century.

‘Many of the themes that continue to dominate furniture history were established in these early texts. The categorisation of furniture by the reigns of English monarchs - Charles II, Queen Anne, George I, George II - emerged in the 1870s. In 1904, the furniture historian Percy MacQuoid (1852-1925) developed the classification focused on the principal woods used in furniture making: oak, walnut, mahogany and satinwood’

Its etched and engraved illustrations o er a sturdier and less costly alternative to the elaborate rococo and Chinoiserie concoctions found in Chippendale’s Director. Work by another contemporary omas Sheraton (1751-1806) is as collectable as Chippendale’s. His Drawing Book was published in three parts from 1791-1794 and provides the most complete illustration of quality furniture of the period.

ese 18th-century pattern books allowed antique furniture collectors to identify and attribute their furniture to leading designers and makers. ey also became the classical texts for furniture historians and have been constantly reproduced in facsimile since the late 19th century.

THE EXPERT COLLECTOR Furniture manuals and pattern books

Guide to Japanning

By the 17th century, East Asian art, in particular porcelain and lacquerwork known as japanning, became fashionable, creating a European market of imports as well a demand for replica designs and manufacture.

The boom inspired several writings on the use of the artistic technique, including a 1688 guide to the process from John Stalker and George Parker, featuring the first detailed pattern illustrations. Their The Treatise of Japaning and Varnishing is one of the most famous texts in furniture history and Bedford’s copy is displayed in its own original lacquered cover (“an art much admir’d by us, and all those who hold any commerce with the Inhabitants of Japan”). The book is shown with other accounts of decorative techniques such as varnishing, burnishing and gilding.

Dating from almost a century later, The ladies amusement; or, Whole art of japanning made easy was a resource for the lady hobbyist full of decorative designs for cutting out and pasting on to household items. Bedford’s is the only surviving complete coloured example, and it was among his favourite possessions.

The term japanning derives from the Japanese use of black lacquer, similar to enamel paint, as a decorative coating for pottery. The book also praised several other types of gilding and varnishing where: “No damp air, no mouldring worm or corroding time, can possibly deface it.”

Left Jean Pillement (1728–1808) Ladies Amusement: Or, e Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Below George Smith (1786-1826) bed for a young lady from A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, in the most approved and elegant taste 1808, credit e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Leeds University Library

Below right George Smith (1786-1826) bed cornices from A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, in the most approved and elegant taste, 1808, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Regency period

Regency antique furniture, from the period 1800-1820, became hugely collectable in the opening decades of the 20th century. Such furniture was rst given scholarly attention in the 1930s by leading furniture historian Margaret Jourdain (1876-1951). Antique furniture by designers such as George Smith (1786-1826), an in uential cabinetmaker and upholster of the Regency period, became increasingly desirable, driven by prominent collectors such as the playwright Edward Knoblock (1874-1945).

Smith published three in uential books on design in the rst quarter of the 19th century. Smith’s A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, published in 1808, was itself in uenced by the work of omas Hope. Smith’s goal was to make Hope’s designs accessible to the middle classes, so that “the beauty and elegance displayed in the ttings-up of modern houses may not be con ned to the stately mansion of our Nobility”.

He adapted classical motifs borrowed from Egyptian, Greek and Roman sources, but was not averse to featuring gothic and Chinese elements. Smith followed his rst book with A Collection of Ornamental Designs, after the Manner of the Antique, in 1812, and was a regular contributor to Ackermann’s Repository. His nal publication was in 1826, e Cabinet-Maker’s and Upholsterer’s Guide.

Left John Stalker and George Parker A Treatise of Japaning and Varnishing, 1688, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Right George Smith (1786-1826) detail from a chaise longue from A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, in the most approved and elegant taste, 1808, Metropolitan Museum of Art

‘Regency antique furniture, from 1800-1820, became hugely collectable in the opening decades of the 20th century. It was first given scholarly attention in the 1930s by furniture historian Margaret Jourdain (1876-1951)’

Victorian nostalgia

From the 1950s, as collecting and furnishing homes with antique furniture became even more popular, British furniture historians began to widen their scope.

e rst books on Victorian furniture were published in the 1960s, led by the art the historian Elizabeth Aslin (1923-1989). She published extensively on 19th-century furniture and design.

Interest in collecting antique Victorian furniture also increased rapidly in the 1960s. Granny’s old whatnot was no longer just ‘second-hand’ furniture but had become a valuable antique. A fold-out sofa catalogue, also on display in the exhibition, published by Henry Lawford in 1855 exempli es this evolving interest in collecting antique Victorian furniture. Mounted on linen, it unfolds like a map and, with its brightly coloured lithographed designs show a riot of puce, lavender and pea-green, at odds with conventional perceptions of Victorian interiors as being dour, drab and dark.

Part of the Furniture: the Library of John Bedford is on at e Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds until December 21, admission is free.

Collecting trade cards

John Bedford was also a keen collector of trade cards with his collection including several hundred 18th and 19th-century trade cards and thousands of billheads from businesses associated with the furniture trade.

Trade cards are one of the earliest forms of commercial advertising and laid the foundations for the modern business card and advertising leaflets. It was in the early 20th century with collectors such as Sir Ambrose Heal (1872-1959) and John Johnson (1882-1956) that a more systematic collecting of trade cards began. Heal was chairman of the well-known furniture maker and a noted collector of antique furniture; his collection of trade cards is in the British Museum. His books Trade Cards of the XVIIIth Century (1925) and London Furniture Makers 16601840 (1953) were compiled using his trade card collection.

18th and 19th-century trade cards are generally quite small, just two or three inches wide, with most printed on paper, rather than thicker card.

Above Joseph Moxon (1627-1691) A pop-up diagram in paper and mica (representing glass), from Practical perspective; or Perspective made easie. Teaching by the opticks, how to delineate all bodies, buildings, or landskips, &c…, 1670. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Leeds University Library

Below left Henry Lawford, e Cabinet of Practical, Useful and Decorative Furniture Designs, London, 1855. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, University of Leeds

Bedford’s collection includes some unique examples, including a rare, coloured example dating from c.1814 from the cabinet-maker and upholsterer Thomas Kerr, based in Edinburgh. It is at odds with most trade cards from the period which are black and white, like the one below produced by Leeds furniture maker Bullman’s, dating from c.1805.

Others depict more picturesque designs and backgrounds, as shown by the one produced by the builder, cabinetmaker and upholstery William Cookes of Warwick, dating from 1820-1830.

1 omas Kerr’s trade card, c.1814. e John Evan

2 Bullman’s trade card, c.1805. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, University of Leeds

3 William Cookes’ trade card, c.1830. e John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, University of Leeds 2

Bedford Library of Furniture History, University of Leeds

REASONS TO COLLECT Jack

Why I Collect

Author and journalist Tony McMahon tells Antique Collecting how his collection of 19th-century newspapers helped build his case for the real Jack the Ripper

My background as a print, TV reporter and producer means I approach history from an investigative angle. Looking into the past to uncover the truth about mysteries that are seemingly unsolvable. For two years, I’ve been investigating the Jack the Ripper case – pouring over the original police and court records, as well as contemporary newspaper reports and other evidence.

e spark for this investigation was an appearance on the documentary series William Shatner’s e UnXplained. We were looking at the arrest of an IrishAmerican suspect: Dublin-born and New York-raised Francis Tumblety.

I’d heard of Tumblety as the American arrested by Scotland Yard as a Jack the Ripper suspect in 1888 but that was the sum of my knowledge. So, imagine my surprise when my research showed that this completely over-thetop character had also been arrested a quarter of a century before over the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. e same man implicated in two of the most heinous crimes of the 19th century. How could that be?

Right Jack the Ripper stalked the East End in 1888 killing ve women, image Shutterstock

Francis Tumblety

Tumblety was something of a celebrity in north America from the 1860s to the 1890s as a high-pro le herb doctor –or quack if you prefer. He wore outlandish costumes and bought masses of classi ed advertising in newspapers from Detroit to Toronto and New York. But he also had constant brushes with the law. Going through American and Canadian newspaper reports from the 1850s onwards, I found that Tumblety had quite a track record. He was accused of having killed one of his own patients but avoided a manslaughter conviction in Canada by escaping across the border to the United States during the trial.

Tumblety was also in trouble repeatedly for cruising, being a surprisingly open gay man.

e real shock though was the arrest over the Lincoln assassination in 1865 and the clear links between him and members of the gang that murdered the president, led

Above Author Tony McMahon uses original research for his new book, image Tony McMahon

by John Wilkes Booth who red the fatal shot. He got o that charge by the skin of his teeth but then in 1888, he was arrested in London as a Ripper suspect. Scotland Yard were convinced they had their man. Yet again, he escaped – jumping bail and returning to New York. I think the case against him is very compelling.

Jack the Ripper in print

Above An 1888 Punch illustration depicts the murderer as a demonic spectral gure, the “Nemesis of Neglect”, stalking London, image Tony McMahon

Right Walter Sickert (1860-1942) e Camden Town Murder painted in 1908 caused some to speculate the artist was Jack the Ripper, image public domain

Walter Sickert: Ripper suspect

There have been many theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper. In recent decades, Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, was one popular candidate. But he was hundreds of miles away in Balmoral when two killings occurred.

The artist Walter Sickert has also been suggested, mainly because he grouped four of his paintings under the title The Camden Town Murder – an unrelated murder case in 1907. Regarding some of the other suspects, their modus operandi was not in line with the Whitechapel killings – for example, one of them used poison, not stabbing.

Back in 1992, I bought an 1888 edition of e Times with several articles on Jack the Ripper for £15 at the regular Alexandra Palace antiques fair that kickstarted my obsession. American newspapers covered the arrest of Tumblety because he was well known in the United States. Journalists of the day interviewed people who had known him since his childhood. Nearly all of them, with only one or two exceptions, thought he was Jack the Ripper. Plus, some very disturbing details emerged of his violent misogyny and his ownership of a collection of uteruses in glass jars which he kept in a cabinet of curiosities and showed to dinner party guests. Of course, the poor women murdered in Whitechapel were brutally dissected with their uteruses removed. Scotland Yard needed no more convincing.

Above far left e “From Hell” letter sent to George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee in October 1888, image public domain

Above left e splash on Puck magazine from September 21, 1889, asks: Jack the Ripper: Who is he? What is he? Where is he???, image public domain

Below left A copy of e Times from October 11, 1888, including letters on the Whitechapel murders, image Tony McMahon

Popular press

e second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of the popular press. If you go back a few decades, newspapers were the preserve of gentlemen in clubs poring over society gossip while smoking a cigar and drinking an agreeable port. It was all about business, politics, and upper-class gossip. But suddenly, as we get into the period of Jack the Ripper, the working class started to read newspapers and periodicals.

We see the start of celebrity gossip, coverage of scandals that even involve posh people, and racy stories that would have once been considered inappropriate to print. It’s an outbreak of democracy.

e Ripper story was massively lucrative for the emerging mass press. Papers like e Illustrated Police News began to publish salacious images of the Ripper victims based on photographs taken by the police at the crime scene.

Just weeks into the killing spree, newspapers latched on to the Jack the Ripper name, used to sign letters that may have all been forgeries. e infamous “From Hell” letter was sent to the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee – an organisation of volunteers led by a man called George Lusk. It came with half a human kidney and a

‘In 1888, he was arrested in London as a Ripper suspect. Scotland Yard were convinced they had their man. Yet again, he escaped – jumping bail and returning to New York. I think the case against him is very compelling’

REASONS TO COLLECT Jack the Ripper ephemera

claim by the writer to have fried and eaten the other half. Newspapers were divided on its authenticity with e Daily Telegraph calling it “an extraordinary parcel” while the Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper thought it might be a student prank.

Victorian blood lust

Distasteful as it is to us today, Victorians were thrilled by the novelty of intimate details of a gruesome murder case with many victims. Jack the Ripper was not the rst serial killer in history, but he was the rst to be covered in this kind of detail. For the newspapers, this was good business and going forward, we see increasing coverage of what we now call “true crime” stories.

e newspapers saw bumper sales during the Ripper murders, literally selling hundreds of thousands of copies, which was unprecedented. For journalists, there was an irresistible opportunity to ll the knowledge gaps with all kinds of speculation. Remember there were no witnesses to the murders, and they occurred in a part of London – Whitechapel – regarded as overcrowded, exceptionally poor, and dangerous. So, journalists could essentially make things up and even name individuals as likely suspects who were subsequently cleared. is was the Wild West of British journalism with poor regulation.

Under pressure

e Jack the Ripper murders were a major test for the e cacy of the police – and they failed the test. Newspapers took a sadistic pleasure in tearing Scotland Yard to pieces. e Commissioner of Police in London, Charles Warren, became an object of ridicule to the point that he resigned right in the middle of the Ripper’s killing spree. In fact, the night after he stepped down, unable to take press criticism any longer, the nal victim of Jack the Ripper was murdered: Mary Jane Kelly.

Punch magazine published some very vicious cartoons about the police, with one depicting an o cer blindfolded while criminals moved around him unseen.

asks “Why should such a thing as a female detective be unheard of in the land?”, image Tony McMahon

Below Left On September 22, 1888, Punch magazine published a cartoon Blind-Man’s Bu depicting a blindfolded police o cer surrounded by a group of ne’er-do-wells, image Tony McMahon

Right Famous Crimes Past and Present detailing the discovery of Jack the Ripper’s rst murder, image public domain

ey came under attack for not nding Jack the Ripper but also allowing other crimes to ourish because so much resource was being devoted to that case. So, you get reporters and the public – in the letters column – expressing fury that young hoodlums are taking over the streets while Scotland Yard is focussed on the Ripper case.

Social attitudes

e Pall Mall Gazette ran an incredibly irresponsible story claiming that in one Ripper-signed letter, the purported murderer stated his crimes were “only against prostitutes” and that his desire was “to respect and protect honest women”. is dismissal of the victims as almost sub-human in comparison to other women is appalling to read.

But there were some more considered reactions. In an edition of e Times, the women’s su rage campaigner, Frances Power Cobbe, took issue with the London police commissioner Charles Warren for dismissing the idea women detectives might solve the crime quicker. “Why should such a thing as a female detective be unheard of in the land?” Cobbe argued that a woman could “extract gossip from other women much more freely” than her male counterparts at Scotland Yard.

At a time when the victims of the murderer were being referred to dismissively as “prostitutes”, it was refreshing to

‘The Ripper story was massively lucrative for the emerging mass press. Papers like The Illustrated Police News began to

publish

salacious

images

of the Ripper victims based on

photographs

taken by the police at the crime scene’

Above A letter to e Times from Frances Power Cobbe

nd this letter from Cobbe saying that maybe women could solve a crime against other women in double the time. Sadly her suggestion was ignored.

New project

My next book is on the Knights Templar and I’m surrounded by books and journals already. My study might best be described as a very pleasant rubbish dump. Now you might think there are no newspapers from the Middle Ages so how will that work? But in the digital newspaper archives, I can research conspiracy theories on the Templars going back 200 years. It’s interesting to see how perceptions of this order of holy warriors have changed. Aside from online resources, I also use the British Library reading room, which I nd an oasis of tranquillity.

Tony’s book Jack e Ripper and Abraham Lincoln: One man links the two greatest crimes of the 19th century is published by Troubador priced £13.79 and available from Amazon or any good book shop.

Life as a collector

As long as I have been a journalist I have collected newspapers. I just love the look and feel of a newspaper. I began buying vintage newspapers at antiques fairs and was amazed you could find publications going right back to the late 17th century. Sometimes what I bought dovetailed with my historical research, but other times I just bought for pleasure. The first print publication I ever bought was in the late 1970s and one of the music mags. This is when the NME (New Musical Express) and Melody Maker were thick broadsheets which I read cover to cover and still have in sealed plastic boxes.

Right e Illustrated Police News from November 24, 1888, image public domain

Below Left e cover of Paris Match on November 30, 1963, reporting the assassination of JFK, image Tony McMahon

Below right Newspapers issued hourly updates on the death of Diana in 1997, image Tony McMahon

told me at a fair that they often burned unsold editions at the end of the day on a bonfire round the back rather than lug them home.

Back in the 1990s, a friend of mine even tore up an 1880s Illustrated London News to use as novelty wallpaper in his flat. Now, a single page with a nice image can sell for £20 or more.

When eBay became very popular in the early 2000s, I found myself bidding obsessively for both vintage newspapers and ancient coins (another collecting bug), but in recent years I’ve drifted back to book and ephemera fairs - mainly because I want to look at the item before buying and it’s nice to strike up a rapport with dealers.

Princess

Diana

When somebody famous or iconic dies, I snaffle up a couple of newspapers. When Diana was killed in 1997 tabloids issued updated hourly editions throughout the night. That was quite unique.

I just love the look and feel of a newspaper. My most treasured items are in a cobbler’s cupboard that I rescued from a psychiatric hospital where my mother was on the medical staff. When it closed – as all those big asylums did in the late 1980s – I made off with the cupboard. Not an ideal place to store newspapers of significant value and one day I should find a better alternative. The rest are in big, sealed plastic crates.

Price boom

Today that 1888 edition of The Times on Jack the Ripper bought for £15 in 1992 would be worth hundreds of pounds. Certain stories, like Jack the Ripper, have made some newspapers very collectable. You also used to be able to buy bound editions of the Illustrated London News from the 19th century for next to nothing. In fact, one dealer

My first obituary related addition to my collection was John Lennon in 1980 when I was 17. I was so stunned when he was assassinated and kept the papers from that day.

My biggest obituary, from 1963 and the aftermath of the JFK assassination, is marked by a box of magazines which feature beautiful images of him and Jackie, as well as poignant images of the family’s terrible grief.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Puzzle TIME

Keep the little grey cells active this summer by taking on the mighty brain of our quiz editor

Peter Wade-Wright

JUNE/JULY QUIZ

Q1 What is Salem snow ake? (a) White porcelain made in Massachusetts (a play on the ‘ss’ in the place name). (b) Decoration on certain objects. (c) Delicate (‘bewitching’) American lace. (d) An auction-house term for an excitably distressed American bidder.

Q2 e American company ‘Bliss’ made what? (a) Upholstered furniture. (b) Decorative, nuptial, i.e. wedding gifts. (c) Dolls’ houses. (d) Comfortable leather shoes.

Q3 In architecture what is entasis? (a) A large ‘real’ porchway. (b) A large mock porchway. (c) A larger-than-life head on a statue, (d) A swelling on a supporting structure.

Q4 What is a Lydian Stone? (a) A touchstone for identifying precious metals. (b) A carved stone pot (as opposed to a thrown and red pot) for storage. (c) An ancient coronation seat. (d) A semi-precious gem.

Q5 Ryijy is a type of (a) Norwegian rocking horse. (b) Finnish rug. (c) Icelandic scrimshaw. (d) Danish pastry-dish.

Below are ve words with their usual meanings. Match them with their alternative ‘antique’ de nitions from the list below. (Note the list includes some red herrings.)

6 A pagoda is an Eastern temple. It is also a…

7 Chopin was a leading 19th-century composer. e word also means …

8 A mullet was a hairstyle popularised in the 1990s. It is also refers to a …

9 Hirame is a at sh often used in sushi dishes.

Send your answers to Crossword, Antique Collecting magazine, Riverside House, Dock Lane, Melton Woodbridge, Su olk, IP12 1PE. Photocopies are also acceptable, or email your answers to magazine@ accartbooks.com. e rst three opened by July 14 will win a copy of Jackson’s Hallmarks, Pocket Edition: English, Scottish, Irish Silver & Gold Marks From 1300 to the Present Day, worth £6.95.

SOLUTION TO LAST MONTH’S CROSSWORD:

The letters in the highlighted squares could be rearranged to make the word Coalport. The three winners, who will each receive a copy of the book, are Emma Sheppard, Suffolk by email; Dave Green, March and Letitia Singh, by email.

It is also a… 10 A Wellington is a type of boot. But it is also a… (a) A black-powder pouch used in the Napoleonic wars. (b) A Scottish wine measure. (c) A south Indian-state coin. (d) An Eastern metallic origami-style creation. (e) A Victorian book of instructional aphorisms. (f) A heraldic device. (g) A lacquer-work technique. (h) A grated-spice shaker. (i) A lockable chest of drawers. (j) An early 20th-century meat-cleaver that has a musical twang when it hits bone.

Finally, here are four anagrams of four French artists. Dredge Saga; Resets a gouger; Secret about Guv and A suave gourmet. Rearrange them to form, in order: an Impressionist artist famed for his pastel drawings and oil paintings depicting dancers; a post-Impressionist champion of pointillism; a leader of the Realism movement and an important gure in the Symbolist movement.

For the answers turn to page 32.

Q6 e word pagoda has another de nition. What is it?

Q8 As well as a haircut, what else is a mullet?

Anagram 1 Which artist is known for his depiction of ballerinas?

Which mechanical toy did Hornby create in the early 1900s?

Across

1 Oscar-Claude _____ (1840-1926). French painter and archetypal Impressionist. His work Impression: Sunrise gave the group its name. (5)

6 Low, upholstered couch that can be used for storage. (7)

7 Sir Sidney _____ (1917-1992). One of Australia’s leading artists of the 20th century. (5)

8 Colloquial term for a hassock or low stool used in church. (7)

9 Archaeological site on Santorini. (It is also an anagram of the word ‘earth’.) (5)

12 Edgar ____ (1834-1917). French Impressionist influenced by 1-down. (5)

15. The river running through France, Luxembourg and Germany (noted for its vineyards and their produce). (7)

16 A container for liquid, usually rounded, except those kept in a hip pocket. (5)

17 Hornby construction toy created in the early 1900s. (7)

18 Robert ____ (1929-2021). Major British-New Zealand artist of cultural issues. (5)

Down

1 Édouard ______ (1832-1883). French modernist painter who was important in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. (5)

2 Emil _____ (1867-1956). German-Danish artist considered a powerful representative of Expressionism. (5)

3 American brand of metal toy models of vehicles and machinery. (5)

4 French author, woman of letters, and actress (1873-1954). Perhaps popularly known for Gigi (1944) (7)

5 Dark purple-red colour. The dye was discovered in 1859…the year of the battle which gave it its name. (7)

10 British Royal House 1714-1901. (7)

11 Period 1811-1820, with a style derived from the Greek revival. (7)

12 Daniel _____ (c.1660-1731). English writer of Robinson Crusoe (5)

13 Important motif in Arthurian literature. (5)

14 Bill _____. Fictional criminal character in Oliver Twist. (5)

Finally, rearrange the letters in the highlighted squares to form the name of a piece of flat-topped furniture 4-3, 5. (Note, one letter is missing, you are invited to write it into the central square.)

Giovanni Fattori’s painting of an Italian camp at the famous battle which also lent its name to

ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER Lots in June & July

TOP of the LOTS

Eric Clapton’s guitar and work by a minerturned-artist are among the lots o ered for sale around the UK this summer

An 18ct gold and tourmaline bracelet by the leading 1960s jeweller Tom Scott has an estimate of £3,000 at Shrewsbury auctioneer Halls’ sale on June 12.

Scott worked closely with the well-known society jeweller Andrew Grima at the emporium he opened on Jermyn Street in 1966, becoming part of the rise of artist jewellers in London in the 1960s, alongside John Donald, Alan Gard and Gillian Packard.

Sadly, the cutting-edge designs they became known for soon fell out of fashion, but recent times has seen their abstract style surge back to favour among collectors.

The much-loved acoustic guitar Eric Clapton famously used to write Wonderful Tonight is going up for auction at Bonhams on June 12 and is expected to make £300,000-£400,000.

The 1974 Martin 000-28 was previously sold by Clapton in 1999 to raise money for his Crossroads Centre charity and has remained with the current owner since. Reflecting on that sale, Clapton said, “During the auction, the guys were all around me, and I felt myself starting to cry.”

The guitar is sometimes referred to as the Rodeo Man acoustic due to a sticker on the side that proclaims “She’s in Love with a Rodeo Man” – a reference to the Don Williams’ record that was released the same year the guitar was made.

An original watercolour for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – the first book in JK Rowling’s series has a high estimate of £480,000 at Sotheby’s this month marking the “highest pre-sale estimate ever placed on an item of any Harry Potter-related work”. The illustration was the first professional commission of British illustrator Thomas Taylor, then aged just 23, and went on to feature on the covers of the debut edition of the novel in 1997.

Taylor was responsible for the famous depiction of the budding wizard, including his dark hair and round glasses.

right omas Taylor was aged just 23 when he completed the

A wartime letter written by Elizabeth II when a 15-yearold princess has an estimate of £1,500-£2,000 at Chiswick Auctions’ timed auction ending on June 16.

Written at Windsor Castle in 1940, it was sent to Lady Nancy Astor at her family seat of Cliveden which she had converted to a hospital for Canadian soldiers.

The princess enclosed a photograph of Buckingham Palace as a memento for one of the war wounded, writing: “I am so sorry not to have sent the photograph before but here it is at last. I do hope the soldier has not gone away. It was entirely my fault that the photograph was not returned at once and I do hope he will forgive me.”

Above right e wartime letter written by Elizabeth II goes under the hammer in west London

An engraved amber jar by one of Britain’s foremost glass artists has an estimate of £600-£800 at Tennants Auctioneer’s sale in Leyburn on June 15.

Ronald Pennell (b. 1935) started engraving glass in 1977, soon developing an idiosyncratic iconography often depicting men and women pitted against the elements. The glass offered for sale this month also reflects his man vs. nature theme depicting the figure of a man fighting a crocodile while watched over by his Jack Russell dog.

Pennell’s work appears in public collections throughout the world, including the V&A, Corning Museum in America and Toyama Glass Art Museum in Japan.

Above right Ronald Pennell (b.1935) engraved glass titled In Between is on sale this month

Above

famous artwork

Right e guitar has an estimate of £300,000-£400,000 at Bonhams’ sale this month

Above e 18ct gold and tourmaline set bracelet is valued at up to £3,000

Four works by the miner-turnedartist and former Bevin boy Tom McGuinness (1926-2006), who was a friend and contemporary of Norman Cornish, go under the hammer at Tennants Auctioneers in North Yorkshire this month.

Born into the poverty-stricken community of Witton Park, near Bishop Auckland, McGuinness showed an early talent for drawing. After leaving school in 1940, aged 14, he was conscripted into the mines as a Bevin Boy, to help bolster a shortfall of coal industry workers.

Four years later, his pit boss spotted him drawing on the side of a coal tub and, with the encouragement of his family, McGuinness enrolled in the Darlington School of Art.

In 1948, he joined the Spennymoor Settlement – a miners’ education and recreation organisation – entering the circle of the writer Sid Chaplin, artist Norman Cornish and Bill Farrell, the settlement’s director.

Farrell was an exponent of experiential art, and encouraged McGuinness to paint what he knew – which was mining. Despite McGuinness’s growing success as an artist (he left the mines briefly after his first exhibition in 1949) economic reality forced him to return to work in the collieries for the next 40 years.

Lived experience

While the harsh conditions underground meant men faced the daily threat of injury and death, the experience did prove a powerful inspiration for McGuinness’s art.

He filled sketchbook after sketchbook documenting the tough existence in brief breaks in the tunnels. Working in this way McGuinness was as much a participant as artist in his art.

Gradually he began to find a powerful and unique artistic voice of distorted, sometimes harrowing, imagery. Line, tone, colour and composition were exaggerated and twisted to express what it felt like to be in the mines.

The four works on sale this month were purchased directly from the artist by McGuinness’s lifelong supporter, the artist Sidney Lockey.

The latter appreciated his friend’s work so much he made offers on his paintings while they were still on the easel, continuing to collect McGuinness’s art hroughout his life. He also built up a treasure trove of memorabilia about the artist, including cuttings, exhibition programmes and photographs.

The works go under the hammer in Leyburn, North Yorkshire at Tennant’s modern and contemporary art sale on June 15.

1 Tom McGuinness in his studio, image credit the family of Sidney Lockey 2 Tom McGuinness (1926-2006) Pipe Men, oil on board, it has an estimate of £2,500£4,000 at this month’s sale 3 Tom McGuinness (1926-2006) Pipe Men, 1965, mixed media, it has an estimate of £700-£1,000 at the same sale 4 Tom McGuinness (19262006) Miner Working at Coal Face, 1969, mixed media, it has an estimate of £400£600 at the same sale 5 Tom McGuinness (1926-2006) Miner at Seam, 1969, mixed media, it has an estimate of £300-£500 at the same sale

SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE

WILD HORSES

BY ALFIE BOWEN, INTRO BY CHRIS PACKHAM

ISBN 9781788842624

RRP £35.00

OFFER PRICE £22.75

Photographer and wildlife activist, Alfie Bowen presents his two-year-long project

BOOK OFFERS

From the 1980s party scene in New York, to a celebration of Henry Moore’s miniature sculptures, this summer’s titles from our sister publisher ACC Art Books are sure to captivate

UP TO 35% DISCOUNT

photographing Britain’s wild horses through the eyes of someone living with autism spectrum disorder. The book celebrates Bowen’s personal connection to the animals he photographs; his connection to photography as an art form; the horses’ connection to one another; and our collective connection to the land and planet.

JEWELRY’S SHINING STARS: THE NEXT GENERATION - 45 VISIONARY WOMEN DESIGNERS

BY BETH BERNSTEIN

ISBN 9781788842402

RRP £50.00

OFFER PRICE £32.50

The book brings together 45 new and talented female jewellery designers from around the globe. Each of the creative women showcased uses innovative techniques such as enamelling, and engraving to bend the rules and break with tradition. Please note this book is published on July 1 and may be despatched later.

AN UNBROKEN THREADCELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF NEEDLEWORK (UPDATED EDITION)

BY DR SUSAN KAY-WILLIAMS

ISBN 9781788842600

RRP £37.50

OFFER PRICE £24.38

Published to coincide with the Royal School of Needlework’s 150th anniversary, the book covers the remarkable history of the Royal School of Needlework from its inception to the present day. While it was founded in part to provide employment for women compelled to earn their own livelihood, it went on to much greater glory – even providing regalia for the coronation of Charles III.

NEW YORK: HIGH LIFE / LOW LIFE

BY DAFYDD JONES

ISBN 9781788842556

RRP £30.00

OFFER PRICE £19.50

At the end of the 1980s, society photographer Dafydd Jones began a new life in New York. He had been hired by Vanity Fair to capture the city and, camera at the ready, quickly filled the society pages of the illustrious magazine, snapping the likes of Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Imelda Marcos as they celebrated and unravelled in the bright lights.

HENRY MOORE IN MINIATURE

BY CHRIS STEPHENS

ISBN 9781843682462

Henry Moore is celebrated for his monumental sculptures but this catalogue (published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Holburne Museum in Bath) celebrates his miniatures – a collection of the great artist’s works that could fit into the palm of the hand. The book looks at Moore’s smallscale sculptures in stone, wood, terracotta, plaster, lead, plasticine and bronze, including works previously unpublished and unexhibited.

BY ANDREW JEFFORD

ISBN 9781913141516

RRP £14.99

OFFER PRICE £9.74

The wine-writers’ wine writer collects his best articles to explore the most profound and interesting questions about wine. A fascinating read for everyone with a broad interest in our cultural world.

The book won ‘Wine Writing UK’ at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2023 and was longlisted in 2022 Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards.

Email uksales@accartbooks.com, or call 01394 389950. Postage to UK addresses is £7, call for overseas rates. Offer subject to change without notice.

OUT AND ABOUT in June & July

FAIR NEWS

is month’s prestigious Treasure House Fair ies the ag for summer events in London, while a new fair at Birmingham’s NEC is building up a head of steam

Stick man

An ash ‘stickback’ Windsor chair dated to 1800 is one of the highlights of the Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative Antiques & Art Fair from June 14-16. Among the dealers taking part is Mark Buckley – showcasing fine Victorian and Edwardian town furniture – while the 20th century is represented by Andrew Muir Decorative Arts and Design presenting ceramics by Clarice Cliff and Moorcroft. Meanwhile, Rowles Fine Art will present Modern British and contemporary oil paintings.

Classic style

Some of the best-known and most sought-after names in the antiques world will be heading to hall 10 of Birmingham’s NEC this summer for a three-day fair from July 12-14. It will mark the second event at the venue staged by Classic Antique Fairs, run by the Kent-based antiques and ceramics dealer John Andrews. He said: “While many dealers in antiques and decorative arts have a presence online these days, plenty of us feel there is no substitute for customers being able to examine items and hear from trusted sellers all about their prospective purchases.”

Dealers set to attend include Scandinavian silver specialist Dansk Silver from Warminster, sculpture dealer Garret and Hurst, based in Sussex, and Charlotte Morris Roper, from Cheshire-based Plaza Jewellery, who will offer pieces by Tiffany & Co. and Cartier.

Treasure trail

The Treasure House Fair returns to the Royal Hospital Chelsea for its second year in June.

Taking place from June 26 to July 2, the event brings together 70 leading galleries featuring more than 20 collecting categories, including fine art, furniture and jewellery.

Fair co-founder, Harry Van der Hoorn, said: “The success of last year’s event is a real show of strength for the UK art market. London remains a vibrant hub for international trade. There is a strong local market and it is also a gateway to both Europe and America.” The fair sees the return of some of the world’s leading antique and art dealers, including Ronald Phillips, Richard Green, Osborne Samuel, Wartski, Adrian Sassoon, Butchoff Antiques, MacConnal-Mason, Godson & Coles, Koopman Rare Art and Adrian Alan.

Above e fair returns to SW3 this summer, image courtesy of Royal Hospital Chelsea

London Art Week

One of the highlights of any collector’s year, London Art Week (LAW) takes place in the capital from June 28 to July 5, with 30 leading galleries dotted around Mayfair and St James’s showcasing a range of exhibitions.

In Duke Street, St James’s, Italian majolica specialist Justin Raccanello celebrates the work of the Scottishborn Margaret Cantagalli who took over her husband, Ulisse’s, ceramics business when he died in 1901 and continued its success in the Haute Epoque period with their daughter, Flavia.

Meanwhile, Emma Rutherford, who set up The Limner Company in 2023 to bring portrait miniatures to a wider audience, will showcase portrait miniatures from 1600-1800. It is the first time a dealer specialising in miniatures has taken part in the event. For details on all events go to www.londonartweek.co.uk

A

Above right

two-handled vase with red lustre, c. 1900, by the Italian majolica maker Margaret Cantagalli, on show from Justin Racanello

Above Coles Antiques with John Andrews at last year’s NEC Classic Antiques Fair

Above Leonard Handley of Dales Antiques in Kirby Lonsdale with the Windsor chair which is priced £2,950

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

Adams Antiques Fairs 020 7254 4054 www.adamsantiquesfairs.com

Adams Antiques Fair, The Royal Horticultural Halls, Elverton Street, SW1P 2QW, Jun 9, Jul 7

Etc Fairs 01707 872 140

www.bloomsburybookfair.com

Bloomsbury Book Fair, Turner Suite at Holiday Inn, Coram Street, London, WC1N 1HT, Bloomsbury Book Fair, Jun 9, Jul 14

Sunbury Antiques

01932 230946

www.sunburyantiques.com

Kempton Antiques Market, Kempton Park Race Course, Staines Road East, Sunbury-onThames, Middlesex TW16 5AQ, Jun 11, 25, Jul 9, 30

Wimbledon Antiques Market, Prince Georges Playing Fields, Bushey Road, Raynes Park, London, SW20 8TE, Jun 16

The Treasure House Fair www.treasurehousefair.com

Royal Hospital Chelsea South Grounds London, SW3 4SR, May 27 - Jun 2

SOUTH EAST & EAST ANGLIA: including Beds, Cambs, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex.

A Blackdog Event Ltd

www.ablackdogevent.com

Dark Horse Brocante, Fakenham Race Course, Fakenham, NR21 7NA, Jun 9

Grand Brocante, Glemham Hall, IP13 0BT, Jun 23

The Runway Flea, Debach Airfield, IP13 6QS, Jul 7

The Bungay Antiques Fair, Maltings Meadown, Ditchingham, NR35 2SA, Jul 21

Arun Fairs

07563 589725

Rustington Antiques & Collectables Fair, The Woodland

Centre, Woodlands Avenue, Rustington, West Sussex, BN16 3HB, Jul 7

CL Fairs

07501 782821

Norfolks Collectors Fair At The Parish Hall, Church Street, Cromer, Norfolk, NR27 9HH, Jul 6

iacf 01636 702326

www.iacf.co.uk

Ardingly International Antiques & Collectors Fair, South of England Showground, Ardingly, Nr Haywards Heath, West Susse, RH17 6TL, Jun 18-19, Jul 23-24

Newbury Antiques Fair, Newbury Showground, Priors Court Road Hermitage, Newbury, Berkshire RG18 9QZ, Jul 8

SOUTH WEST

including Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire.

Antique Fairs Cornwall

07887 753 956

www.antiquefairscornwall.co.uk

Lostwithiel Antiques & Collectors Fair Community Centre, Plyber Christ Way, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0HA, Jun 9, Jul 14

Pensilva Liskeard Antique and Collectors Fair, PL14 5NF, Jun 30, Jul 28

Arun Fairs

07563 589725

Emsworth Antiques and Collectors Fair, Emsworth Community Centre., North Street, Emsworth, Hampshire, PO10 7DD, Jun 9, Jul 14

Cameo Fairs

07790 126967

www.cameofairs.co.uk

Antique, Vintage and Collectables Fair, Central car park, High Street, Lyndhurst. SO43 7NY, Jun 16, Jul 21

Corfe Castle Antiques Fair

Village Hall, East Street, Corfe Castle, Dorset, BH20 5EE, Jul 7

Continiuity Fairs

01584 873634

www.continuityfairs.co.uk

Matford Centre, Matford Park Rd, Marsh Barton, Exeter EX2 8FD, Jun 29

Drayton Antique & Collectors Fair, 07488549026

Drayton Village Hall, Lockway, Drayton, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4LG, Jul 7

iacf

01636 702326

www.iacf.co.uk

Shepton Mallet - Antiques, Vintage & Collectors Fair

Royal Bath & West Showground Somerset, BA4 6QN, Jun 14

Sga Fairs

07759 380299

Browsers Antique & Collectors Fair. Pangbourne Village Hall

Adj to Central Village Car Park Pangbourne, Berkshire, RG8 7AN, Jun 22, Jul 27

EAST MIDLANDS

including Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland.

Arthur Swallow Fairs

01298 274493 asfairs.com

Antiques & Home Show, Vintage Flea Market, EXO Centre, Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln, LN2 2NA, Jun 9

iacf 01636 702326 www.iacf.co.uk

Newark International Antiques & Collectors Fair, Newark & Nottinghamshire Showground, Newark, Nottinghamshire, NG24 2NY, Jun 6-7

Runway Monday at Newark Antiques and Collectors Fair, Jul 1

WEST MIDLANDS

including Birmingham, Coventry, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire

B2B Fairs

07774 147197/ www.b2bevents.info

Malvern Flea & Collectors Fair

Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire

WR13 6NW, Jun 23, Jul 21

Classic Antique Fairs

07789 502027

07395 056393

www.classicantiquefairs.co.uk

Antiques and Fine Arts Fair, Birmingham NEC, (Hall 10) B40 1NT , Jul 12-14

Coin and Medal Fair Ltd

01694 731781

www.coinfairs.co.uk

Midland Coin Fair

National Motorcycle Museum, Bickenhill, Birmingham, B92 0EJ, Jun 9, Jul 14

Continiuity Fairs

01584 873634

www.continuityfairs.co.uk

The Bingley Hall Antique Home & Vintage Fair, Stafford Showground Ltd Weston Rd, Stafford ST18 0BD, Jun 22-23

NORTH including Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Yorkshire.

Cooper Events

01278 784912

www.cooperevents.com

The Pavilions of Harrogate Decorative, Antiques & Art Fair, Railway Road, Harrogate North Yorkshire, Jun 14-15

V&A Fairs

01244 659887

www.vandafairs.com

Nantwich Civic Hall Antique and Collectors Fair, Civic Hall Nantwich, Beam Street, Nantwich, Cheshire, England, CW5 5DG, Jun 20, Jul 18

SCOTLAND

Glasgow, Antique, Vintage & Collectors Fair

07960 198409

Bellahouston Leisure Centre, 31 Bellahouston Drive, Glasgow, G52 1HH, Jun 16, Jul 14

IRELAND

Vintage Ireland

+353 85 862 9007

Carlow Antiques, Vintage & Collectables, Woodford Dolmen Hotel Kilkenny Rd, Mortarstown Upper, Carlow, Jun 9

North Dublin Antiques, Art & Vintage Fair, White Sands Hotel Coast Road, Portmarnock, Jul 7

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

Adam Partridge

The London Saleroom, The Auction Room , Station Parade, Ickenham Road, West Ruislip, HA4 7DL, 01895 621991

www.adampartridge.co.uk

Antiques and Fine Art, Jun 11, Jul 23

Bonhams

101 New Bond St, London W1S 1SR, 020 7447 7447

www.bonhams.com

Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, Jun 5

The Art of Craft (Online) ends Jun 6

Prints and Multiples, Jun 22

Anything But Ordinary, Jun 12

London Jewels, Jun 13

Islamic and Indian Art (Online), Jun 5-14

Fine Watches, Jun 19

Modern British and Irish Art, Jun 19

Books and Manuscripts (Online), Jun 10-20

Prints and Multiples (Online), Jun 17-26

The Modern Body, Jun 26

Fine Clocks, Jul 3

Old Master Paintings, Jul 3

500 Years of European Ceramics, Jul 4

Weekly Watches (Online), Jun 27-Jul 9

British and European Art (Online), Jul 1-10

Bonhams

Montpelier St, Knightsbridge, London, SW7 1HH, 020 7393 3900

www.bonhams.com

Travel and Exploration (Online) Jun 3-12

Rock Pop and Film, Jun 12

Fine Glass and British Ceramics, Jun 18-19

Fine Books and Manuscripts, Jun 19

Jewels (Online), Jun 17-25, Jul 22-30

Glass and British Ceramics (Online), Jun 12-26

Knightsbridge Jewels, Jul 10

Fine and Rare Wines (Online), Jul 2-11

Chiswick Auctions

Barley Mow Centre

Chiswick, London, W4 4PH 020 8992 4442

www.chiswickauctions.co.uk

Photographs, Jun 6

Silver and Objects of Vertu, Jun 11

20th/21st Century Art, Jun 18

Modern British Art, Jun 25

Jewellery, Jul 2

Watches, Jul 2

Designer Handbags and Fashion, Jul 3

Fine Oriental Rugs and Carpets, Jul 9

Arts of India, Jul 9

Modern Prints and Multiples, Jul 25

Stamps and Postal Material from a British Gentleman Collector, Jul 31

Chiswick Auctions

1Roslin Square, Roslin Road, London, W3 8DH www.chiswickauctions.co.uk

Photographica, Jul 10

Christie’s

8 King St, St. James’s, SW1Y 6QT, 020 7839 9060 www.christies.com

Manuscript Masterpieces from The Schøyen Collection, Jun 11

Jewels Online: The London Edit (Online) ends Jun 11

Fine and Rare Wines Online: London Edition, Jun 11-20

Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection - Part I, Jun 25

Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection - Part II, Jun 14-28

The Exceptional SaIe, Jul 2

Old Masters Part I, Jul 2

Old Masters Prints, Jul 2

Antiquities, Jul 3

Old Masters Part II: Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings and Watercolours, Jul 3

Valuable Books and Manuscripts, Jul 10

Forum Auctions

220 Queenstown Road, London SW8 4LP, 020 7871 2640

www.forumauctions.co.uk

Books and Works on Paper (Online), Jun 13, Jul 4, 25

The Library of the Late John Collins (Online), Jun 27

Editions and Works on Paper

1500 - 2024, Jul 3

Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper (Online), Jul 18

Hansons Auctioneers

Richmond Saleroom, 6 Parkley’s Parade, Upper Ham Road, Richmond, TW10 5LF 0207 018 9300/ 07469 353077 www.hansonsauctioneers.com

June Silver, Jewellery, Watches, Fine Art and Antiques Auction: Including The Gentleman’s Library Of Wine, Whiskey and Works Of Art, Jun 28

Noonans

16 Bolton St, Mayfair, W1J 8BQ, 020 7016 1700 www.noonans.co.uk

Jewellery, Silver and Objects of Vertu, Jun 11

Watches, Jun 11

British and Irish Banknotes, Jun 12 Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, Jun 19, Jul 17

British Coins, Jun 20

World Coins, Jun 20

Ancient Coins and Antiquities, Jun 20

Phillips

30 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6EX, 020 7318 4010 www.phillips.com

Pablo Picasso: Paper and Clay, Jun 6

Evening and Day Editions, Jun 6

Olympia Auctions

25 Blythe Road, London W14 0PD, 020 7806 5541 www.olympiaauctions.com

Fine Paintings, Works on Paper and Sculpture, Jun 12

Fine Antiques Arms, Armour and Militaria, Jun 26

Roseberys

Knights Hill, Norwood, London, SE27 0JD, 020 8761 2522 www.roseberys.co.uk

Modern British and Contemporary Art, Jun 11

Prints and Multiples, Jun 18

Arts of India, Jun 19

Jewellery and Watches, Jun 25

Fine and Decorative, Jun 26 Silver, Jun 26

Old Master, British and European Pictures, Jul 9

Design, Jul 17

Traditional Home (Live Online), Jul 31

Sotheby’s

New Bond St., London W1A 2AA, 020 7293 5000

www.sothebys.com

Modern British and Irish Art Evening Auction, Jun 6

Made in Britain Day Auction, Jun 7-8

Modern Art Day Auction, Jun 26

European and British Art, Jul 4

Bibliotheca Brookeriana III: Art, Architecture and Illustrated Books, Jul 9

Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern, Jul 10

Timeline Auctions

23-24 Berkeley Square

London W1J 6HE, 020 7129 1494

www.timelineauctions.co.uk

Ancient Art, Antiquities, Natural History and Coins, Jun 4-8

SOUTH EAST AND EAST

ANGLIA: Inc. Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex

Bishop and Miller

19 Charles Industrial Estate, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 5AH, 01449 673088

bishopandmillerauctions.co.uk

The Tony Chapman Pewter Collection Final Part IV, Jun 19

The Tobias Jellinek Personal Collection, Jun 19

The Oak Interior, Jun 20

Bishop and Miller

Unit 12 Manor Farm, Glandford, Holt, Norfolk, NR25 7JP 01263 687342

bishopandmillerauctions.co.uk

None listed at the time of going to press.

Bellmans

Newpound, Wisborough Green, West Sussex, RH14 0AZ, 01403 700858

www.bellmans.co.uk

Wines and Spirits, Jun 17

Antiques and Interiors, Jun 24-25

Asian Ceramics and Works of Art, Jun 26

Fine Clocks, Jun 26

Printed Books, Maps and Manuscripts, Jul 17

Burstow & Hewett

The Auction Gallery, Lower Lake, Battle, East Sussex,TN33 0AT, 01424 772 374

www.burstowandhewett.co.uk

Homes and Interiors, Jun 5-6, Jul 3-4

Fine Sale, Jun 20, Jul 18

Fine Art and Sculpture, Jun 20, Jul 18

Luxury Watches, Fine Jewellery and Silver, Jun 28, Jul 26 20th-Century Design, Jul 18

The Canterbury Auction Galleries 40 Station Road West, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 8AN, 01227 763337

canterburyauctiongalleries.com Fine Sale, Jun 7-8

Catherine Southon Auctioneers

Farleigh Court Golf Club, Old Farleigh Road, Selsdon, Surrey, CR6 9PE, 0208 468 1010 www.catherinesouthon.co.uk

Antiques and Jewellery, Jul 17

Cheffins

Clifton House, Clifton Road, Cambridge, CB1 7EA 01223 213343, www.cheffins.co.uk

The Interiors Sale, Jun 13 The Fine Sale, Jun 26-27

Ewbank’s

London Rd, Send, Woking, Surrey, 01483 223 101 www.ewbankauctions.co.uk

James Bond, Jun 7

Jewellery, Watches and Coins, Jun 19

Silver and Fine Art, Jun 20 Antiques, Books, Stamps, Clocks and Antique Furniture, Jun 21 Cars, Motorbikes, Parts and Automobilia, Jun 28 Comics, Jul 4

Vintage Posters, Jul 5

Retro Video Games: Nintendo GameCube, DS and More, Jul 11 Toys and Models, Jul 12 Interiors and Modern Design, Jul 25

Contemporary Art and Editions, Jul 25

Vintage Fashions, Jul 26

Excalibur Auctions Limited Unit 16 Abbots Business Park Primrose Hill Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, WD4 8FR 020 3633 0913

www.excaliburauctions.com Marvel, DC and Independent

Comic Book, Jun 8

Signed Books, Jul 1-31

Collectors’ Cavern Auction Incl.

Entertainment Memorabilia and Posters, Jul 6

Diecast and Vintage Toys and Model Railway Collectors Sale, Jul 27

Gorringes 15 North Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2PE, 01273 472503

www.gorringes.co.uk

Weekly Featuring Textiles, Jun 10

Weekly featuring Mid-Century Furniture and Vinyl, Jun 17

Weekly Featuring Lux, Jun 24

Summer Fine Sale, Jun 25

Weekly House and Gardens, Jul 1, 22, 29

Weekly House and Gardens, Featuring Books, Jul 8

Weekly House and Gardens, Featuring Militaria and Medals, Jul 15

Lacy Scott & Knight

10 Risbygate St, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 3AA, 01284 748 623

www.lskauctioncentre.co.uk

Home and Interiors, Jun 8, Jul 6, 27

20th-Century Art and Design, Jun 14

Wine, Port and Spirits, Jun 14

Fine Art and Antiques, Jun 15

Medals, Militaria and Country Pursuits, Jun 15

Vintage and Classic Cars, Jun 15

Toys and Models, Jun 21

Lockdales Auctioneers

52 Barrack Square, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP5 3RF 01473 627110

www.lockdales.com

The Banknote Sale, Jun 4-5

The Fine Sale, Jun 11-12

Paper Collectables, Jun 25-26

Coins and Exonumia, Jul 16-17

Medals, Militaria and Weapons, Jul 30-31

Parker Fine Art Auctions

Hawthorn House, East Street, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7SX, 01252 203020

www.parkerfineartauctions.com

Fine Art and Frames, Jun 6

Reeman Dansie

8 Wyncolls Road, Severalls Business Park, Colchester, Essex, CO4 9HU, 01206 754754

www.reemandansie.com

Specialist Collectors, Jun 11-13

Royalty, Antiques and Fine Art, Jul 3-4

Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers

Cambridge Road, Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, CM24 8GE, 01279 817778 www.sworder.co.uk

Homes and Interiors, Jun 4, 26

Fine Interiors, Jun 11-12, Jul 16

Fine Wines and Spirits (Timed Online), Jun 14-23

Old Master, British and European Art, Jun 25

Jewellery, Jun 27

Design, Jul 9

Out of the Ordinary, Jul 30

Toovey’s Antique & Fine Art Auctioneers Spring Gardens, Washington, West Sussex, RH20 3BS, 01903 891955

www.tooveys.com

Wines and Spirits, Jun 11

Fine Art, Silver and Plate, Jewellery, Jun 12

Furniture, Tribal Art, Antiquities, Natural History, Collectors’ Items, Works of Art and Light Fittings, Rugs and Carpets, Jun 13

Asian and Islamic Ceramics and Works of Art, Jun 27

T.W. Gaze

Diss Auction Rooms, Roydon Road, Diss, Norfolk,IP22 4LN, 01379 650306. www.twgaze.com

Antiques and Interiors, Jun 7, 14, 21, 28

Blyth Barn Furniture Auction, Jun 11, 18, 25

Toys, Jun 11

Beswick, Jun 14

Jewellery, Jun 18

Musical Instruments, Jun 20

Vintage Fashion and Furnishings, Jun 27

Modern Design, Jul 9

W&H Peacock Auctioneers

Eastcotts Park, Wallis Way Bedford, Bedfordshire MK42 0PE, 01234 266 366 www.peacockauction.co.uk

Sporting Guns and Antique Arms, Jun 13

Wine and Spirits, Jun 14

SOUTH WEST: Inc. Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Wiltshire

Adam Partridge

The Devon Saleroom, The Antique Village Station Road Hele, Exeter EX5 4PW 01392 719826

www.adampartridge.co.uk

Fine Art, Antiques & Collectors’

Items with Jewellery, Silver and Watches, Jun 24

Antiques and Fine Art, Jul 23

Auctioneum

Broadlands Fruit Farm, Box Road, Bathford, Bath BA1 7LR, 01225251303 www.auctioneum.co.uk

20th Century Design and Interiors, Jun 28

Contemporary Art, Jul 1

Auctioneum East Bristol, Unit, 1 Hanham Business Park, Memorial Road, Bristol, BS15 3JE, 0117 967 1000 www.auctioneum.co.uk

Ceramics and Collectables, Jun 11, Jul 9

Furniture and Interiors, Jun 12, Jul 10

Militaria, Jun 14

Diecast, Trains amd Models, Jul 25

Action Figures, Retro Toys and Gaming, Jul 26

Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood

St. Edmund’s Court, Okehampton Street, Exeter EX4 1DU, O1392 41310 www.bhandl.co.uk

Spring and Jewellery Auction, Jun 4-5

East Down Manor: The Collection of the Late Simon Scott-Brown, Jun 18

British Bespoke Auctions

The Old Boys School, Gretton Rd, Winchcombe, Cheltenham, GL54 5EE 01242 603005 www.bespokeauctions.co.uk

Antiques and Collectables (Timed), ends Jun 8

Silver, Jewellery and Collectables, Jun 13

Automobilia, Militaria, Silver, Jewellery, Antiques and Collectables, Jul 24

Chorley’s

Prinknash Abbey Park, Near Cranham, Gloucestershire, GL4 8EU, 01452 344499 www.chorleys.com

Fine Jewellery, Silver and Watches, Jun 18

Old Masters, British and European Art, Jun 18

Ombersley Court, The Collections of Lord and Lady Sandys, Jun 19

Fine Art and Antiques, Jul 23-24

David Lay Auctions

Lay’s Auctioneers, Church Row, Lanner Redruth, Cornwall, 01736 361414, TR16 6ET

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.

www.davidlay.co.uk

Cornish Art and Fine Art, Jun 6 Oak and Country, Jun 13

Silver (Timed), Jun 7-23

Antiques and Interiors, Jul 4

Dawsons Unit 8 Cordwallis Business Park, Clivemont Rd, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 4BU, 01628 944100

www.dawsonsauctions.co.uk

Fine Jewellery, Watches and Silver, Jun 20, Jul 18

Entertainment Memorabila (Timed), Jun 13-24

Fine Art and Antiques, Jun 27, Jul 25

Dominic Winter Mallard House, Broadway Lane, South Cerney, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 5UQ, 01285 860006 www.dominicwinter.co.uk

Printed Books and Maps and Documents, Early Printed and Manuscripts Music, Jun 19 Photographs, Historical Modern Literature, Private Press, Illustrated Books, Original Book Art, Playing Cards, Toys and Games, Jun 20 Aviation and Military History, Printed Books, Maps and Documents, Jul 24

British and European Paintings and Watercolours, Old Master Prints and Drawings, Modern Prints, Jul 26

Antiques and Historic Textiles, Jul 26

Dreweatts Donnington Priory Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 2JE 01635 553 553

www.dreweatts.com

Art Live, Jun 6

Old Master, British and European Art, Jun 12

Interiors, Jun 13

Books and Works on Paper (Online), Jun 13

Fine Jewellery, Silver, Watches and Objects of Vertu, Jun 18

Jewellery, Silver, Watches, Pens and Luxury Accessories, Jun 19

Fine Furniture, Sculpture, Carpets, Ceramics and Works of Art - Day 1 and Day 2, Jun 25- 26 Interiors Day 1 and 2, Jul 9-10

Modern and Contemporary Art, Jul 11

Jewellery and Watches, Jul 18

Duke’s Brewery Square, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1GA, 0105 265080

www.dukes-auctions.com

Fine Jewellery, Watches and Accessories, Jun 12

Gardiner Houlgate

9 Leafield Way, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9SW, 01225 812912

www.gardinerhoulgate.co.uk

The Guitar Auction, Jun 11-14

Musical Instruments, Jun 14

Watched and Jewellery, Jun 26

Antiques and Works of Art, Jun 27

Hansons Auctioneers

49 Parsons Street, Banbury, Oxford, OX16 5NB, 01295 817777

www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk

Banbury June Silver, Jewellery, Watches, Fine Art and Antiques Auction, Jun 19

Harper Field Auctioneers

The Stroud Auction Saleroom

Ebley Road, Stonehouse, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL10 2LN 01453 873800

www.harperfield.co.uk

June Auction to include Jewellery, Watches, Silver, Clocks, Coins and Bijouterie, Jun 12-13

July Auction, to include Models, Classic Cars and Motorbikes, Toys, Pictures and Paintings, Books, Ephemera, Stamps, Musical Instruments and Vinyl Records, Jul 11-12

Kinghams 10-12 Cotswold

Business Village, London Road, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucester, GL56 0JQ, 01608 695695

www.kinghamsauctioneers.com

Silver and Objects of Vertu, Jun 14

Lawrences Auctioneers Ltd

The Linen Yard, South St, Crewkerne, Somerset, TA18 8AB, 01460 703041

www.lawrences.co.uk

Silver and Vertu, Jul 9

Pictures, Jul 10

19th-20th-Century Design, Jul 10

Ceramics and Oriental Works of Art, Jul 10

Collectors and Sporting, Jul 10

Jewellery and Watches, Jul 11

Furniture, Clocks and Rugs, Jul 12

Mallams Oxford

Bocardo House, St Michael’s St, Oxford, OX1 2EB, 01865 241358 www.mallams.co.uk

Modern Art and Design, Jun 12-13

Art and Music, Jul 10-14

Collective: Jewellery, Silver & Accessories (Timed), Jul 12 to Aug 8

Mallams Cheltenham

26 Grosvenor St, Cheltenham. Gloucestershire, GL52 2SG 01242 235 712 www.mallams.co.uk

Country House Sale, Jun 26

Mallams Abingdon

Dunmore Court, Wootten Road, Abingdon, OX13 6BH, 01235 462840 www.mallams.co.uk

The House and Garden Sale, Jun 24-25

Moore Allen & Innocent

Burford Road Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 5RH, 01285 646050

www.mooreallen.co.uk

Vintage And Antique Furniture Auction, Jun 19-20

Vintage And Antique Furniture Auction (Timed), Jun 21-30

Philip Serrell

Barnards Green Rd, Malvern, Worcestershire. WR14 3LW, 01684 892314 www.serrell.com

Interiors, Jun 13, Jul 9

Fine Art and Antiques, Jul 25

Special Auction Services

Plenty Close, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 5RL 01635 580 595

www.specialauctionservices. Photographica and Cameras, Jun 11

Dolls and Teddy Bears, Jun 18

Glorious Trains Auction (0 Gauge and Larger Gauges), Jun 25

Antiques and Collectables, Jul 2

Jewellery, Pens and Silver Auction, Jul 11

Diecast and Toys for the Collector, Jul 16

Music and Entertainment, Jul 23

Military Collectables, Jul 30-31

The Cotswold Auction Company

Chapel Walk Saleroom, Chapel Walk, Cheltenham, Gloucesterhire, GL50 3DS, 01242 256363

www.cotswoldauction.co.uk

Books, Medals, Militaria, Coins, Stamps and Collectables, Jun 4

Wessex Auction Rooms

Westbrook Far, Draycot Cerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 5LH, 01249 720888

www.wessexauctionrooms.co.uk

Antiques, Collectables and Furniture, Jun 15, 29, Jul 11, 27

Toys, Jun 20-21

Vinyl Records and Music Memorabilia, Jul 5

Woolley & Wallis 51-61 Castle Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 3SU, 01722 424500 www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk

Fine Arts and Crafts, Jun 19 Furniture, Works of Art and Clocks, Jul 3

Fine Jewellery, Jul 10

Silver and Objects of Vertu, Jul 16

EAST MIDLANDS: Inc. Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Sheffield

Bamfords The Derby Auction House, Chequers Road, Derby, Derbyshire, DE21 6EN, 01332 210 000 www.bamfords-auctions.co.uk

The Collector’s Grand Tour: Curated Objects, Interior Design, Curiosities and Works from the Library, Jun 6 Medals, Militaria and Firearms, Jun 11

Antiques, Interiors, Estates and Collectables, Jun 12, 26

Three Day Fine Art and Antiques, Jul 24-26

Bamfords Peak Shopping Village Chatsworth Road, Rowsley, Derbyshire,DE4 2JE, 01629 730 920

www.bamfords-auctions.co.uk

The Two Day Bakewell Country House Antique and Fine Arts, Jun 6

The Bakewell Country Home Interiors & Collectors Auction

Including Furniture, Ceramics, Textiles, Jewellery, Contemporary Design, Jun 19, Jul 3, 17, 31

Gildings Auctioneers

The Mill, Great Bowden Road, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 7DE 01858 410414

www.gildings.co.uk

Antiques & Collectors, Jun 18

Jewellery and Watches, Jun 25

Golding Young & Mawer

The Bourne Auction Rooms, Spalding Road, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9LE 01778 422686

www.goldingyoung.com

Collective Sale, Jun 5-6, Jul 3-4, 31

Bourne Toy, Transport and Automobilia Sale, Jul 17

Golding Young & Mawer

The Grantham Auction Rooms, Old Wharf Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 7AA, 01476 565118

www.goldingyoung.com

Grantham Asian Art Sale, Jun 19

Collective Sale, Jun 26-27, Jul 24-25

Golding Young & Mawer

The Lincoln Auction Rooms, Thos Mawer House, Station Road North Hykeham, Lincoln LN6 3QY, 01522 524984

www.goldingyoung.com

Collective Sale, Jun 12-13, Jul 10-11

Hansons Heage Lane, Etwall, Derbyshire, DE65 6LS 01283 733988

www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk

Derby June Iconic Design Auction: 1860 to the Present Day, Jun 7

Derby June Antique and Collectors Auction: Including Silver, Jewellery and Watches, Jun 13-18

Derby June Stamp and Philatelic Auction, Jun 18

Derby June Toys, Diecast and Model Railway Auction, Jun 20

Derby June Coins, Banknotes and Historica Auction, Jun 26

Irita Marriott Auctioneers and Valuers Ltd, William’s Yard Derby Road, Melbourne, Derbyshire, DE73 8JR 01332414848

iritamarriottauctioneers.co.uk

Antiques, Jun 12-13, Jul 17-18

WEST MIDLANDS: Inc.

Birmingham, Coventry, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire

Fellows Augusta House, 19 Augusta Street, Hockley, Birmingham, B18 6JA , 0121 212 2131

www.fellows.co.uk

Watches, Jun 6

Jewellery, Day 1, Jun 11, 25, Jul 9, 23

Jewellery, Day 2, Jun 12, 26, Jul 10, 24

Designer Handbags and Accessories, Jun 18

Pawnbrokers Jewellery and Watches, Jun 19, Jul 3, Jul 17

Jewellery and Costume Jewellery, Day One Jun 19

Jewellery and Costume Jewellery, Day Two, Jun 20

Bags of Costume Jewellery, Jun 21

Monies, Medals and Militaria, Jun 27

Fine Jewellery, Jul 4

Watches and Watch Accessories, Jul 11

Gemstones, Jul 16

Silver and Plated Ware, Jul 18

Fieldings Mill Race Lane, Stourbridge, DY8 1JN 01384 444140

www.fieldingsauctioneers.co.uk

Centuries of Glass, Jun 13

Summer Jewellery and Watches, Jun 14

Antiques (Online), Jun 19-26, Jul 17-24

From Delft to De Morgan - The Roger Hensman Tile Collection, Jun 26

Antiques and Interiors, Jul 11-12

Vinyl, Cameras, Music and Entertainment Memorabilia, Jul 25

Halls Bowmen Way, Battlefield, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY4 3DR 01743 450700

www.hallsgb.com/fine-art.com

Fine Art, Antiques and Jewellery Auction, Jun 12

Pictures, Ceramics, Collectables and Modern Design Auction, Jun 26

Books, Coins and Stamps Auction, Jul 24

Hansons Auctioneers

Bishton Hall, Wolseley Bridge, Stafford, ST18 0XN, 0208 9797954

www.hansonsauctioneers.co.uk

Bishton Hall June Dolls, Teddy

Bears and Toys: Antique Textiles and Fashion, Jun 5

Bishton Hall July Classic Car and Automobilia Auction, Jul 6

Potteries Auctions

Unit 4A, Aspect Court, Silverdale Enterprise Park, Newcastle, Staffordshire, ST5 6SS, 01782 638100

www.potteriesauctions.com

The Barlaston Collection: Royal Doulton Character Figures. Jugs and Lady Figures (Timed), Jun 19-30

20th Century Rare Ceramics, Collectables, Jewellery and Furniture, Jul 12-13

Trevanion

The Joyce Building, Station Rd, Whitchurch, Shropshire, SY13 1RD, 01928 800 202 www.trevanion.com

Fine Art and Antiques, Jun 26, Jul 31

NORTH: Inc. Cheshire, Co.

Durham, Cumbria, Humberside, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, Sheffield, Yorkshire

Adam Partridge

Withyfold Drive, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 2BD 01625 431 788

www.adampartridge.co.uk

Decorative Arts, Toys, Cars and Automobilia, Jul 3-4

Studio Ceramics, Jul 19

Adam Partridge

The Liverpool Saleroom, 18 Jordan Street, Liverpool, L1 OBP, 01625 431 788

www.adampartridge.co.uk

Toys with Antiques and Collectors’ Items, Jun 5-6

Asian Art with Antiques & Collectors’ Items, Jul 3-4

Anderson and Garland Crispin Court, Newbiggin Lane, Westerhope, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE5 1BF, 0191 432 1911 www.andersonandgarland.com

Modern Pictures, Jun 5 Collectors, Jun 13

Pictures, Jun 19

Trains, Jun 20

Music, Jun 26

Homes and Interiors, Jul 2

Silver, Jewellery and Watches, Jul 3

Fine Silver, Jul 16

Fine Watches, Jul 17

Fine Jewellery, Jul 17

Summer Country House and Fine Interiors, Jul 17-18

Capes Dunn

The Auction Galleries, 40 Station Road, Heaton Mersey, Cheshire, SK4 3QT.

0161 273 1911

www.capesdunn.com

Interiors, Vintage and Modern Furniture, Jun 10, 24, Jul 8, 22

Antiquarian and Collectable Books, Maps, Prints and Affordable Art, Jun 25

European and Oriental Ceramics and Glass, Jul 9

Northern Artists, Jul 23

Elstob

Ripon Business Park, Charter Road, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 1AJ, 01677 333003 www.elstob.co.uk

Fine Art and Antiques, Jun 12

Omega Auctions Ltd

Sankey Valley Industrial Estate, Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside WA12 8DN, 01925 873040 www.omegaauctions.co.uk

Day 1: Audio Equipment and Music Memorabilia | Day 2: Rare and Collectable Vinyl Records, Jun 25 - 26

Vinyl and Memorabilia Showcase to include The John Martyn Collection

Vinyl and Memorabilia Showcase to include The John Martyn Collection, Jul 2

The BBC Collection, Jul 16

Ryedale Auctioneers

Cooks Yard, New Road

Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, YO62 6DZ, 01751 431 544 www.ryedaleauctioneers.com

Country House Sale, Jun 14, Jul 5-6

Monthly Antiques, Interiors and Collectables, Jul 4

Collectables and Militaria, Jul 19-20

Sheffield Auction Gallery

Windsor Road, Heeley, Sheffield, S8 8UB, 0114 281 6161 www.sheffieldauctiongallery.com

Specialist Collectable Toys, Jun 13

Fine Silver, Jewellery and Watches, Jun 13

Antiques, Fine Art and Collectables, Jun 14

Specialist Collectable Coins, Jun 27

Specialist Collectable Stamps, Jun 27

Tennants Auctioneers

The Auction Centre, Harmby Road, Leyburn, North Yorkshire DL8 5SG, 01969 623780

Stamps, Postcards and Postal History, Jun 5

Antiques and Interiors, including Designer Fashion, Jun 7

20th-Century Design, Jun 15

Modern and Contemporary Art, Jun 15

Antiques & Interiors, to include Beswick & Border Fine Arts, Jun 21

Militaria and Ethnographica, Jun 26

Antiques and Interiors, Jul 5, 19

British, European and Sporting Art, Jul 13

Fine Jewellery, Watches and Silver, Jul 13

Summer Fine Sale, Jul 13

Summer Transport Sale, Jul 13

Toys and Models, Sporting and Fishing, Jul 24

Vectis Auctions Ltd

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton on Tees, TS17 9JZ, 01642 750616

www.vectis.co.uk

Specialist Diecast Auction, Jun 5, 13

Retro Gaming, Comics & General Modern Diecast and Model Auction, Jun 11

Vinyl, Music and Associated Items Auction, Jun 12

Lego and Action Man Auction, Jun 18

Tinplate and Collectable Toy Auction, Jun 19

Scalextric, Slot Cars & 1/18th

Scale Model Auction, Jun 20

TV and Film Related Auction, Jun 25

Model Train Auction, Jun 27

Doll and Bear Auction, Jul 2

Vintage Doll and Bear Auction, Jul 3

Wilkinson’s Auctioneers

The Old Salesroom, 28 Netherhall Road, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN1 2PW, 01302 814 884

wilkinsons-auctioneers.co.uk

Period Oak Including The Janet and David Moor Collection & Desborough Collection of Treen Items, Jun 15-16

Wilson55

Victoria Gallery, Market St, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 5DG 01270 623 878

www.wilson55.com

Fine Wines and Spirits, Jun 6

Fine Jewellery and Watches, Jun 13

Fashion and Designer Sale (Online) Jun 1-13

Northern Art, Jun 20

SCOTLAND

Bonhams

22 Queen St, Edinburgh, EH2 1JX 0131 225 2266

www.bonhams.com

Summer Home and Interiors (Online), Jun 10-20

Lyon & Turnbull

33 Broughton Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3RR, 0131 557 8844

www.lyonandturnbull.com

Islamic ad Indian Art, Jun 12

Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Photographs (Live Online), Jun 19

Luxury Handbgs and Accessorie (Live Online), Jun 25

The Art Edit, Jun 26

Antiquities, African & Oceanic Art and Natural History, Jul 31

McTears Auctioneers

31 Meiklewood Road, Glasgow, G51 4GB, 0141 810 2880

www.mctears.co.uk

Coins and Banknotes, Jun 12,

Jul 24

Jewellery, Jun 12, Jul 24

Watches, Jun 12, Jul 24

Antiques and Interiors, Jun 13, 27, Jul 11, Jul 25

Whisky, Jun 19, Jul 31

The Scottish Contemporary Art Auction, Jun 20

Toys, Models and Pop Culture, Jul 3

British and Inernational Pictures, Jul 3

Clocks and Instruments, Jul 4

Fine Furniture and Works of Art, Jul 4

Sporting Medals and Trophies, Jul 4

Scottish Jewellery, Incl. A Private East Coast Collection, Jul 17

WALES

Rogers Jones & Co

17 Llandough Trading Estate, Penarth, Cardiff, CF11 8RR, 02920 708125

www.rogersjones.co.uk

Fine Art, Interiors, Jun 7, Jul 19

Jewellery and Collectables, Jun 28

The Club House, Jul 1

The Welsh Sale, Jul 27

Selections, Jul 27

IRELAND

Adam’s

26 Stephens Green, Dublin 2, D02 X665, 00 353 1 6760261

www.adams.ie

At Home, Jun 11

The Jewellery Box, Jun 23 Fine Asian Art, Jun 24

Sheppards Irish Auction House The Square, Durrow,

Co. Laois, R32 FN88, Ireland

00 353 (0)57 874 0000 www.sheppards.ie

Glantelwe Gardens, Jun 25

Whyte’s

38 Molesworth St. Dublin D02 KF80 Ireland

00 353- (0)1-676 2888

www.whytes.ie

Eclectic Collector, Jun 7

FOR SALE

PAIRS & ANTIQUES & FINE ARTS LIMITED

Call Iain Tel/Whatsapp +44(0)7557400728 email Iain@antiques.co.uk For further information

Labelled/ stamped branded furniture from Georgian to Victorian, eg Thomas Butler, Morgan & Sanders, J Alderman, Ross of Dublin (pictured), Gregory Kane, Wilkinson of Ludgate Hill, Robert James of Bristol, James Winter, W Priest, Samuel Pratt and many others. Tables all types, chairs, bookcases, , Davenport. mirrors etc. Campaign shower.

Georgian chamber horse exercise chair (pictured)

Unusual Georgian to William IV architectural features eg doors, door frames, over door pediments. 18th century staircase spindles and handrail needed. Anything Georgian or Regency with lots of character considered.

Rectangular Georgian fanlight.

Four identical reclaimed Georgian wooden sash windows with boxes, approx 60 high x 37 wide.

Marble fire surrounds from 1750 to 1850ish. White or coloured. Bullseyes, William IV styles etc. Brass Regency reeded fire insert and Victorian griffin grate (pictured)

Marc My Words

Antiques Roadshow’s

Marc Allum discovers antiques have a lot in common with the glittering world of fast cars and marvels at the restoration of a very special Spitfire

What has tailoring got to do with the world of antiques? For a start, they are both industries steeped in history and I was delighted to be invited to speak recently as part of a prestigious line-up of art, motor car, tailoring and museum specialists at the Royal Academy, as part of the Concours on Savile Row.

is glitzy annual event, which combines motoring and bespoke tailoring, has rapidly become the place to be seen for both the sartorially assured and the dedicated petrol head. But it also pedals a serious message too.

First-up in the RA lecture theatre was a discussion on restoration and preservation, with sustainability at the heart of the conversation. Along with some other dignitaries including Hannah Higham, the Royal Academy’s senior collections curator and Mark Henderson, chair of the Savile Row Bespoke Association, we debated preservation versus restoration in both the art and automotive worlds.

It was interesting how seamlessly (If you’ll excuse the pun) these themes can embrace everything from the restoration of a Georgian chest of drawers, to the conservation of a ‘priceless’ painting or the rebuilding of a barn- nd Bentley Blower.

Cars to clothes

Of course recycling – giving new life to old things – is at the heart of the antiques industry and, car-wise, we see it in a Lalique mascot, dashboard silver Saint Christopher, or poster advertising Le Mans.

e same could also be said for high fashion and clothes which can also be enmeshed in the world of art and antiques. As our RA discussion highlighted, I’m still wearing suits I purchased 20 years ago. Yes, they were expensive but they’ve essentially paid for themselves. ey are not disposable fashion. e only obstacle to continual use has been my expanding waistline and the odd moth incursion!

Top left e Spit r e AA810 as she once was, image courtesy of Concours on Savile Row

Top Alastair ‘Sandy’ Gunn, the Scottish pilot who e w the Spit r e and lost his life in the Great Escape 80 years ago

Above e fuselage was installed in the main showroom of renowned tailors Gi ves & Hawkes, image courtesy of Concours on Savile Row

Below right Welldressed Marc was one of the speakers on restoration and preservation at the recent Concours

‘‘The Spitfire was discovered in July 2018, by volunteers for the Spitfire AA810 Project, who collected the wreckage to restore it

to its former glory partly in homage to the unsung heroes who flew them’

Great Escape

One of the main highlights of the two-day event was the installation of the fuselage of a Spit re AA810 in the main showroom of enowned tailors Gi ves & Hawkes, as part of a project to restore the historic plane to ying condition.

It isone of only 240 Spit re aeroplanes hat remain worldwide. It is also the only surviving aircraft linked to the legendary ‘Great Escape’, which is commemorating its 80th anniversary this year.

It was own by Alastair ‘Sandy’ Gunn, a Scottish pilot, part of an unarmed RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, who was shot down and captured in Norway in 1942, later becoming one of 76 men who escaped the Stalag Luft III prison camp in 1944. Sadly, he was caught after two days, and subsequently executed by the Gestapo.

e Spit re was discovered in July 2018, by volunteers for the Spit re AA810 Project, who collected the wreckage to restore it to its former glory, partly in homage to the unsung heroes who ew them.

While the Concours was an undoubtedly glitzy event, it also had some very important projects at the heart of it.

Marc Allum is an author, lecturer and specialist on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. For more details go to www.marcallum.co.uk

Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th June 2024 11am start

VIEWING DATES

Thursday 13th and Friday 14th June 10-4pm Each sale day 9-11am or by private app.

Hardcopy catalogues are available for £10, the online catalogue is available at: drouot.com, invaluable.com, the-saleroom.com, wilkinsons-auctioneers.co.uk

Wilkinsons Auctioneers Ltd

The Old Saleroom, 28 Netherhall Road, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN1 2PW Telephone: 01302 814884 www.wilkinsons-auctioneers.co.uk