UK

Remarkable things continue to happen in the Beswick market. Consider the fortunes of a handful of scarce, but damaged, models seen recently at the Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent rooms of Louis Taylor (12.5% buyer’s premium).

MARCH is a busy fairs month for many organisers, but none more so than Cooper Antiques Fairs who hold three events, starting this weekend with their long-established fair at Arley Hall, near Knutsford in Cheshire, from March 11 to 13.

by Ian McKayLAST summer, when a large Biggles collection was put up for sale in Swindon, results were a little disappointing – at least for some of those titles offered individually, where some reserves proved too strong for collectors and trade alike – and around half of the 100 lots were bought in – but W.E. Johns’ famous creation certainly does not lack admirers and in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale of February, a much smaller group of Biggles books, mostly from one source, brought good prices.

A SURVEY has unveiled the hostility of antique dealers to the London Assembly’s bid to extend the congestion charge to Kensington and Chelsea.

FAMOUS West End department store Heal’s is the sponsor of the V&A’s major spring exhibition, International Arts and Crafts, which will be held at the museum in South Kensington from March 17 to 24.

NEWS too, of confident moves in the fine art trade. After a career in the London art world spanning some 45 years, Martin Summers has, just after his 66th birthday, set up his own gallery and dealership, Martin Summers Fine Art Ltd, at 54 Glebe Place in Chelsea.

INCLUDED in Potburys’ (12.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Sidmouth, Devon on February 8 and 9 was a 75-lot collection of pictures by the Orientalist painter Charles Robertson (1844-91) consigned from his granddaughter’s estate. They appear to have been the works that remained in the family after the artist’s Godalming studio was sold off following his death from a heart attack aged 47.

The Fine Art Auction Group, parent company of Dreweatt Neate Fine Art and Neales of Nottingham, will be the major sponsor of the Art of Dealing conference at the Earls Court Conference Centre in London on May 16.

A group of 19th century sepia drawings, depicting Aborigines in Queensland, came up for auction at Brightwells (15% buyer’s premium) sale of paintings and prints on January 26 in Leominster, Herefordshire.

The market for Clarice Cliff may not be the spirited beast it was five or six years ago when Christie’s South Kensington’s specialist sales could routinely expect to boast 80-90 per cent selling rates by lot.

David Lay, Penzance. January 20 & 21. Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent THERE were rather fewer lots than usual at Cornwall but the 720 on offer were true to tradition; a high take up (around 90 per cent), plenty of two- and three-figure bids on collectables and ceramics, standard furniture creeping into four figures, and one lot taking off.

Valued at £1500-2000, a signed first issue of William Blacker’s The Art of Angling..., printed in 1842 in Edinburgh by Anderson & Bryce and containing 31 trout flies and a single salmon fly attached with decorative coloured paper seals (see illustration top right) but lacking the single plate, was bid to £22,000 (Head).

Brightwells, Leominster, January 12-13 Buyer’s premium: 15 per cent Illuminating this 900-lot Hereford-shire sale was the English brass candlestick featured on the front page of ATG No.1675, February 5, which was taken to £4600 in the confident belief it was a period 16th century example.

THE engaging subject and large size of this 16 x 13in (41 x 33cm) Berlin-style porcelain plaque, right, helped it to the top slot at the January 18 sale held by Philip Laney (15% buyer’s premium) at the Malvern Auction Centre.

THE fortifying glass of fruit punch offered by the Wadebridge auctioneers Lambrays (15% buyer’s premium) to buyers before the start of their traditional Cornish New Year’s Eve sale may not have fuelled much interest in the mid- to low-range quality furniture – around two-thirds of which failed to sell – but it whetted one private buyer’s appetite for the large shaped stained glass window, right.

A WORK of art in itself, a piece of US history and redolent of the tragic past of the American Indian tribes in which so many collectors are now passionately interested. Could any artefact be more likely to guarantee a huge price than this Blackfoot war bonnet, right, dating from the early/mid 19th century but still in fine condition?

IN February 1885, a 21ft long illuminated manuscript dating back to the 1320s was exhibited to the Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries in London.It was described as “a very curious Genealogical Roll of the Kings of England” whose “chief point of interest is the artistic excellence of the figures”.

THE Andrew McIntosh Patrick Collection of metalwork by Christopher Dresser – to be sold by Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull in April – is on view at The Fleming Collection, 13 Berkeley Street, London W1 on Thursday, March 10 (not March 7 as previously advertised).

Police have issued this CCTV image of a man wanted for questioning in connection with a theft at a Greenwich antiques shop.

Back in the 1920s the Great Western Railway was amongst the pioneers of marketing. It produced a large array of promotional items, among which were the well-known series of wooden jigsaw puzzles made by the Chad Valley toy company, and sold on the railway’s bookstalls. Nearly 40 different puzzles were made.