Art and antiques news from 2003

THE list of manufacturers who made cocktail shakers and accessories in the interwar years reads like a roll-call of the great luxury houses of the early 20th century: Asprey, Cartier, Tiffany, Hermès, Alfred Dunhill, Louis Vuitton, Puiforcat, Lalique and Baccarat. However, the firm responsible for some of today’s most coveted cocktail shakers is J.A. Henckels of Dusseldorf.

THE Wallace Collection’s exhibition From Palace to Parlour, A Celebration of 19th century British Glass may not shed any new academic light on the subject but it draws attention to a period often ignored by traditional glass collectors: the 19th century. “The 19th century has been completely overlooked,” says independent scholar and glass consultant Martine Newby who curated the exhibition on behalf of the Glass Circle.

While the antiques trade no longer totally shuts down during late July and August it really gets into gear in September, a particularly intensive time for antiques fairs. There are three major fairs in the capital this month, The Chelsea Antiques Fair, The Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair and the 20/21 British Art Fair.

Monart glass specialist and collector Ian Turner is a familiar name to many in the trade, having devoted the last two decades to buying and researching this vividly coloured 20th century Scottish art glass. In addition to building a 260-piece collection, he has also contributed to several books including Ysart Glass, edited by Frank Andrews, 1990.

The snuff mull is one of the most common Scottish silver forms – but shown here are three examples that proved a few cuts above the norm. Top right: favourite Victorian entry at Bonhams’ Scottish Sale was a ram’s head table snuff mull by Mackay & Chisholm of Edinburgh, 1880.

Scam letters targeting small businesses continue to fall through the letterboxes of Britain’s antiques dealers.The Antiques Trade Gazette has warned in the past of the dubious practices of firms with official-sounding names who ‘offer’ to register dealers under the Data Protection Act for £95.

The Antiquities Dealers’ Association have welcomed the news that Switzerland looks set to ratify the 1970 UNESCO Convention which calls for signatory countries to collaborate on the repatriation of stolen and illicit works of art.

The Fine Art Auction Group have announced three new appointments aimed at strengthening the Group’s business in the South West. Nigel Trevelyan has joined the group from Rendells in Ashburton to run Robin A. Fenner’s saleroom in Tavistock.

Representatives of a US company trading in class action certificates are coming to London to meet UK recipients of vouchers relating to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing settlement in the USA.

AFTER more than 40 years the Chelsea Antiques Fair is to become an annual rather than bi-annual event. From next year owner Caroline Penman will drop the March staging.

The market for cricket memorabilia is dominated by Australian and UK collectors who battle every summer for the best entries in London’s major June and July sporting sales. This year Melbourne-based Ludgrove’s (15% buyer’s premium) joined the major houses and held a Literary, Historical and Sporting sale on July 29 at St James DeVere Cavendish Hotel.

It is such an obvious thing to do that it is surprising that there not similar dispersals to that of the Colin Adams collection of English pennies (1797-1970) at Spink (17.65% buyer’s premium) on July 23. It required 375 lots to cover this collection and so we are furnished with a price guide for what is surely a popular if relatively elementary passion.  

IT WAS the Sotheby’s sale of July 10 that included the largest and most significant portion of Churchilliana on offer this summer, but it was not the only sale to serve the market, as this report shows.

As the many people in the trade who remember Joan Eyles will know, the Yorkshire dealer was a cat enthusiast. So when pieces from her own collection were offered at Tennants’ Leyburn rooms on 17-18 July it was no surprise to see the occasional accent on the feline.

NORFOLK-based Joy Fletcher has been involved with antiques fairs in the past but not to the extent of her commitment to a brand new quality event she is launching later this month.

Prices at auction for works by Basil Blackshaw have been slowly creeping up over the past few years and Northern Ireland’s most famous living artist now enjoys international acclaim.

Rock and Pop memorabilia: Memorabilia relating to The Beatles may routinely command the highest prices in the Rock and Pop collectors’ market, but Bonhams Knightsbridge (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) gambled that the Fab Four’s enthusiasts would also be interested in the 95 lots relating to Stuart Sutcliffe, the fifth Beatle, in their 505-lot entertainment auction on July 29.

THERE will be fairs aplenty in Harrogate this month, generally of the standfitted type one associates with that elegant Northern venue. First up, however, is an unashamed showground event from September 5 to 7 when Lincolnshire organiser George Taylor, who operates as Grosvenor Exhibitions, stages his Great Northern International Antiques and Collectors Fair at the town’s Great Yorkshire Showground.

The extraordinary walnut and burr walnut veneered hexagonal display table, right, combining the talents of three well-known names of the Scottish design movement will carry an estimate of £7000-10,000 when Shapes sell the contents of Glencruitten House, near Oban from their Edinburgh saleroom on September 6.

Home and Garden: Domestic Spac is the title of a two-part exhibition opening at the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, East London from September 16. This exhibition brings together 80 paintings in two groups (Part One: 1730-1830, from September 16 to January 18 2004 and Part Two: 1830-1914, from March 9 to July 18 2004) to explore the representation of urban domestic interiors and gardens in paintings over two and a half centuries.