Fairs and Markets

Mark West deals in 18th, 19th and 20th century glass designed to be used. He will exhibit at The Mayfair Antiques & Fine Art Fair from January 10-13, 2019.

At the height of winter across one week, IACF mounts two fairs catering for different audiences. Noelle McElhatton visited the events at Alexandra Palace and Newark to see what brings the punters out in hail, wind or rain.

Though IACF Newark markets itself firmly as a trade fair, it ensures the public has access too, in particular die-hard collectors who similar to trade buyers, know the dealers they want to visit.

“There are great fairs and brocantes in France but this is special, not least because of the venue.”

It’s been a packed year with new fairs starting up as well as relaunches.

Staged in the early days of the new year, The Mayfair Antiques & Fine Art Fair is a chance to do little personal shopping after a frantic season of gift buying.

Though the organisation IACF is best known by its acronym, it’s hard to forget what the initials stand for. AA road signs guiding drivers into the Newark showground emphasise the word ‘international’ and the fair is known for its ability to attract overseas trade buyers.

MADAM – As someone who has been dealing in early furniture for over 50 years and who has served on vetting committees for the Grosvenor House and BADA fairs as well as having been a consultant for Sotheby’s, I find TEFAF’s decision to exclude dealers from their vetting is frankly bizarre.

Keith Richards Antiques brings a selection of early 20th century silver modelled on historic pieces to the first 2019 staging of The Cotswolds Decorative Antiques & Art Fair at Westonbirt School.

When Natalie Smith opened the Woodbridge Antiques Centre in the pretty Suffolk town 11 years ago, she said she was given a great piece of advice: never compromise on quality and presentation.

Doom and gloom surrounds retailing in the UK but in the trade plenty of antique centres are bucking the trend. Here we bring you a short focus on a few of them – ideal places to buy a variety of stock offered from a number of dealers in one spot.

A regular stallholder at Arthur Swallow Fairs is Liam Woodgates, director of the Hopkinson Vintage Antique and Art Centre in Nottingham, where a corner display is pictured below.

Among the works selling at the recent Art & Antiques for Everyone fair in Birmingham was a watercolour by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908).

A trip to France before Christmas to buy unusual gifts is always a good plan. Here are three antiques and vintage brocantes to visit: two well-known weeklies in Paris and a biannual event in Bordeaux.

Cary Whitley has been running her biannual Love Vintage brocantes in June and December in Wanstead, east London, for eight years, with the next on Saturday, December 8.

Events at Ludlow Castle, St Stephen's Church and Hodson Hall

A number of dealers and auctioneers have reacted to TEFAF’s new policy on vetting which will prevent all commercial specialists from being members of its vetting panels.