UK

Leading regional salerooms are reaping the rewards of the bullish Modern British art market with more robust results.

Every year in July the railings on tree-lined Josephine Avenue in Brixton become a vibrant space; an open-air gallery exhibiting more than 1000 pieces of work from over 200 artists, printmakers and photographers.

John Slade of Take Five Fairs has regretfully had to cancel all his future Tolworth A3 antiques and collectables fairs held at the Tolworth Recreation Centre, near Kingston in Surrey.

The Charing Cross Collectors’ Market, at the bottom of Villiers Street, near Charing Cross Station, has to be one of the longest running niche fairs in London.

Comprising what amounted to a crowded Regency household, fully and elegantly furnished and inhabited by half a dozen bisque or parian dolls, a c.1820 mahogany dolls’ cabinet was the outstanding offering from C&T Auctioneers (18% buyer’s premium) in Tunbridge Wells.

Led by the 17th century Goan hardwood, ivory and bone tabernacle which took a 100-times-estimate £36,000 from a European bidder (see Pick of the Week, ATG No 2294), a recent sale at Chiswick Auctions (22% buyer's premium) also included a tribute to a quintessential Victorian imperial hero – General Gordon.

The library of William O’Brien, an Irish-born QC and High Court judge in the Victorian era, sold for a premium-inclusive £2.8m at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on June 7.

In its ongoing exhibition, the Bohun Gallery includes emerging artists alongside leaders in the British art market such as Elisabeth Frink, John Piper and Mary Fedden.

In our continuing series looking through the keyhole of ‘bricks and mortar’ shops in 2017, ATG talks to Paula Rippingale Mills, who runs Rippingales Antiques and Collectables in Suffolk.