Events and conferences

AFTER a closure of some 18 months to sort out some little problems with the lease, Mayfair's Shapero Gallery, which specialises in antique prints, photographs, maps and watercolours, reopens this week at 24 Bruton Street, W1 with a show called simply Cities.

THE word English is arguably superfluous in the title of a selling exhibition entitled The English Drawing Room, which runs from October 1 to 19 at the Mayfair showrooms of Windsor House Antiques.

A host of other events have been programmed to attract the international buyers expected in France for the Paris Biennale (September 20-29). These range from auctions – Christie’s sale of sculptures by Alberto Giacometti on September 28, or Prunier’s Haute Epoque sale in Louviers on September 22 – through small, specialist fairs (devoted to Asian Art, Decorative Arts and Tribal Art) – to gallery shows.

LONDON antique dealer Robert Hirschhorn lives in his showroom and it is the interior of his Camberwell Georgian town house which exemplifies his look, which he terms “Smart Country”.

UK: FROM October 1 – 31, to mark the 602nd anniversary of Chaucer’s death, the Gallery in the Friars, Canterbury, is holding an exhibition, entitled The Canterbury Tales.

This muscular terracotta modellino of a moor, Il Moro, 2ft 75/8in high (80.5cm), attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), wrested the top slot from a powerfully modelled pair of 16th century bronzes in Sotheby’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 174-lot European Sculpture and Works of Art 900-1900 auction on July 9.

After three years of restoration work, the porcelain rooms of the Zwinger State Art Collection in Dresden are to re-open to the public on Sunday October 6.

AT a convivial press lunch at Sotheby’s last week, scribes and dealers mingled to officially welcome the fifth Asian Art in London celebrations, scheduled for November 7 to 15.

USA: ENJOY a scary new exhibition running at Posteritati Movie Posters until September 8 at their galleries at 241 Centre Street, New York City, between SoHo and Little Italy.

LONDON: NOTTING Hill specialists in 20th century and contemporary design Themes and Variations hold an exhibition of Italian furniture and glass design at their gallery at 231 Westbourne Grove, London W11 from September 27 to October 19.

It’s the taking part…There were boos and some barracking, there were smiles and pouts, there was undisguised triumphalism and some unmistakable despair – yes, the third staging of the British Antiques and Collectables Awards at London’s Dorchester Hotel on June 26 was definitely the best yet.

Medieval illuminated manuscripts are hardly two a penny but religious works such as bibles and books of hours are much more frequently encountered than secular ones.

AT the end of this week the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House in London will unveil a new display of one of the most outstanding collections of silver.

SHOWING at the V&A until June 9 is ‘Milan in a Van’, the pick of some of the best work at the Milan Furniture Fair, one of the world’s top design trade fairs which was held from April 10 to 15.

After trading for only six months, Fieldings Auctioneers, based in Stourbridge, West Midlands have won a regional business award. They were nominated by the Black Country Chamber of Commerce for the Best New Business, Service Sector in their first annual New Business Awards (2001-2002).

THE Dutch Ambassador welcomed British and Dutch dealers to a reception at the London embassy on April 24 to celebrate the signing of a formal agreement between two leading trade associations.

SEVEN decades of work by Susie Cooper, one of Britain’s keynote ceramics designers, is the subject of ‘Susie Cooper Style’, an exhibition running until the autumn at the Wedgwood Story visitor centre at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent.

IN 1528 Albrecht Dürer wrote: “There lives no man upon earth who can give a final judgement upon what the most beautiful shape of a man may be; God only knows that.” As five exhibitions highlight, artists love to expose all the inconsistency of the human form, be it scrawny or rotund.

AS New York’s Asia Week came to a close last week, early reports suggest the market for Oriental work is internationally still very strong and that in this field at least business is back to normal in the American capital.

A ROYAL remarriage will take place at Parham House in Sussex at the end of this month between King Philip IV of Spain and Elizabeth of France.