UK

THERE is a deal of trade excitement at the latest initiative of that accomplished organiser Fran Foster, who from January 28 to February 1 launches the National Fine Art and Antiques Fair at The National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham.

ENGLISH POTTERY AND LATER ENGLISH CERAMICS: The mixed-owner, all-English sale held by Bonhams Bond Street on December 10 covered a much broader canvas than the Billie Pain collection. It ranged from early delftwares to 20th century Royal Worcester, with examples of most other ceramic categories in between.

Combining exotic subject matter with rarity value, figures of the Victorian lion-tamer Isaac Van Amburgh are among the most desirable of all Staffordshire portrait figures.

BERKSHIRE organiser Dinah Ives, who is better known as Magna Carta Country Fayres, has been putting together events at the Runnymede Hotel, Egham, Surrey, for 28 years, but has left for what she feels is a better venue where she is getting a better deal: the Exhibition Hall of Ascot Racecourse in her home county.

There was an upbeat country house feel at Mallams’ salerooms with almost half the sale comprising the local Grove House estate of the late Mrs Graham Greene, the 98-year-old widow of the writer (Greene was, as he said, “a bad husband and a fickle lover” but although he and his wife separated in 1948 they never divorced).

Over recent years the market for classic railway engine nameplates has shown itself to be as solid and reliable as the great engines they once adorned. It is 40 years since the Beeching Report condemned a third of the British rail network to the axe and effectively ended the glorious age of steam, but even then there were enthusiasts who cared enough to preserve what they could.

One of the unforeseen consequences of the arrival of Enlightenment philosophy in Puritan Scotland was the creation of clubs and societies that encouraged exuberant and outrageous behaviour in their members. The best known is the Beggar’s Benison.

This Women’s Social and Political Union medal for valour was awarded to Mary Richardson, the Canadian-born militant suffragette who, in protest at the re-arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst in March 1914, slashed the ‘Rokeby’ Venus with an axe at the National Gallery.

UK: Fraser Glennie Fine Arts, the auction arm of the Circencester-based surveyors and estate agents, are to join the Cotswold Auction Company.

TWO nations, two auctions, one plane. The French and English charity auctions of Concorde parts and memorabilia, held by Christie’s and Bonhams in Paris and London respectively, both attracted audiences of over 1000 and passed off as complete sell-outs, with no shortage of estimate-crushing prices for components and souvenirs from the now retired iconic aeroplane.

While Sotheby’s incorporated their best objects of vertu into their silver sale on November 20, Christie’s offered theirs in tandem with portrait miniatures in a 264-lot sale the following month on December 9. The vertu side of the sale performed particularly well, with hardly any failures, most of the 55 unsold lots coming from the miniatures.

The object on which the keenest attention in the works of art world was focused this month was this 161/2in (42cm) diameter, 15th century parcel-gilt and silvered bronze roundel depicting Mars, Venus, Cupid and Vulcan.

SOTHEBY’S chief executive Robin Woodhead has confirmed that whatever happens with the casino plans at Olympia, his company are committed to maintaining two salerooms in London. He made the pledge during an in-depth interview with the Antiques Trade Gazette in which he also explained that flexibility over staffing and the running of sales were key to future success.

UK: Brightwells are moving their operations from Ryelands Road in Leominster to a new and purpose-built building at Easters Court, at the northern end of the A49 bypass. The new building is nearly three times the size of the present premises where space had become a problem.

The technique of Limoges enamelling, imitated by a number of historically-minded potteries in the second half of the 19th century, was championed at Worcester by Thomas Bott and then by his son Thomas John Bott.

Stained glass, such a pre-occupation of the Victorians from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Aesthetics and the Arts and Crafts movement, has been something of a Cinderella among collectors for the best part of a century. Now, while the lovely and neglected Cinders may not exactly be the belle of the ball, interest in, and prices for, the medium are creeping up.

LAST week, after two years of renovations, Judith and Phil Carrigan officially opened their Uzella Court Antiques Centre and Fine Art in the centre of Lostwithiel, Cornwall. The centre is housed in a partly medieval building which has been a shop of one sort or another – most recently a butcher’s – since 1850.

A DRAWING by E.H. Shepard of Winnie the Pooh playing a balalaika raised bidding on a third edition of The House at Pooh Corner to £7000 in the Greenslade Taylor Hunt sale of November 13 – and although nothing else in the 825-lot Taunton catalogue came remotely close to that in financial terms, a few other lots deserve mention.

LONDON dealer Caroline de Kerangal is happy dealing from home and a couple of times a year at the decorative fair in Battersea Park, but she occasionally gets the urge to work from a shop, and it appears to be a seasonal thing.

François Linke 1855-1946: The Belle Epoque of French Furniture by Christopher Payne, published by the Antique Collectors’ Club. ISBN 1851494405 £75hb