Fairs and Markets

The first civic event in the St Andrews Hall in Norwich took place in 1544. Five centuries later, the City Antiques Fair and Fleamarket runs monthly in the medieval surroundings of the Grade I-listed hall.

Slow and steady. That, dealers reported, was the general course of sales at the recent British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) fair.

Dealer Chris Brown is a busy man. A specialist in Poole pottery, for a start he organises the twice-yearly dedicated sale at Cottees Auctions in Poole, Dorset.

In answer to the question “why do you want to climb Mount Everest?” mountaineer George Mallory, who died on it in 1924, famously replied “because it’s there”.

The panel of kantha stitching from West Bengal shown below will be for sale with dealer Jennifer Evans, aka Jenpatola, for £79 at The Textile Society’s antique and vintage textile fair at the Armitage Centre in Manchester on Sunday April 15.

The first Cotswolds Decorative, Antiques & Art Fair of the year comes to Westonbirt School this month. Running from April 13-15, the 29-year-old event hosts 43 dealers (fully booked), particularly those from around the west of England.

Good things come to those who wait. That is exactly what happened for Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts. At last year’s TEFAF Maastricht a Dutch collector showed interest in a painting on his stand by Jacob Henricus Maris.

One of the aspects of the antiques fairs which are so much a part of the trade’s lifeblood is often their sheer longevity.

A cluster of new fairs is planned in Europe this year.

The Easter holiday weekend is one of the busiest in the fairs and markets calendar and organisers will be offering up a prayer to the gods for good weather, particularly those who run showground events.

Bac To Basic Antiques brings a special display of First World War commemorative pottery to this edition of the Antiques for Everyone fair.

The venerable Antiques for Everyone (AfE) fair is still open to change in its 33rd year. The next edition runs from April 5-8 at Birmingham’s NEC, hosting around 200 dealers who offer items to fit a variety of tastes, functions and wallets.

Easter fairs and markets around the UK over the Easter weekend.

Among the first sales of BADA 2018 was this modernist Archibald Knox silver and pink enamel inkwell sold from the stand of The Peartree Collection for more than £10,000.