UK

A biscuit box is probably not every young child’s idea of an exciting toy, but to collectors of tins, advertising and tinplate, the Huntley & Palmers Tribeck lorry tin, 1937, 83/4in (22cm), in Bonhams Knightsbridge’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) trains, toys and diecast sale on July 15 was the most coveted entry.

DUELLING pistols often attract considerable interest and one of the top lots in this 1162-lot Welsh sale at Anthemion on 16 July was a pair of pistols by Wogden & Barton, 1795-1803.

Hawk-eyed dealers scouring the London rooms in July for Asian sleepers would have been rewarded by a trip to Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) Asian Decorative Arts 586-lot sale on July 10.

Between 1781-90, when Fidelle Duvivier was at New Hall he created some of the factory’s finest wares, painting in a highly characteristic style figure and landscape compositions. However, as Geoffrey Godden wrote in his Guide to English Porcelain: “His pieces are so rare that I wonder what on earth he did with himself when he was employed at the factory!”

SPECIALIST items took three of the top-selling lots at this George Kidner Hampshire sale on 9 July. One was a 1731 pocket globe by Richard Cushee, a land surveyor, map and globe maker known to have been apprenticed to John Sellers Sr, a leading figure in the London map trade at the time.

LAST year was not a good year for Partridge Fine Art – in fact according to John Partridge, the firm, founded in 1905, suffered their worst set of results in his 46-year chairmanship. Now, however, a change in business direction is helping the Bond Street dealership – one of the capital’s most venerable and traditional – to turn their fortunes around.

NOT everyone sleeps it off on Boxing Day. Lancashire organisers Hoyle Promotions have been organising a Giant Boxing Day Fair at the Empress Ballroom at Blackpool Winter Gardens for more than 20 years and both public and trade attendance grows from year to year.

NOW in its fourth year The Original London Textiles,Vintage Fashion and Accessories Fair continues to make its mark attracting a different crowd to most fairs, many of them from the fashion industry.

ONE can never accuse the energetic Essex organiser Robert Bailey of resting on his laurels, or even standing still for longer than it takes to greet a visitor to one of his fairs. More aware than most independent organisers of the increasing importance of marketing Robert has just appointed Zöe Martin (right) to his permanant staff to oversee marketing and public relations.

NORTH Yorkshire-based organisers Galloway Antiques Fairs continue a busy summer from August 29 to 31 with their fair at Naworth Castle, Brampton in Cumbria. Space limits this event to just 28 dealers but they obviously do business as a good many of them have been with Naworth since the first in 1996.

A man has pleaded guilty to deception charges in an Essex court after conning more than a dozen auction houses across the South East with dud cheques. The extent of Robin Moss’s spree only came to light after auctioneers contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette following a warning in a recent issue and the paper liaised with several police forces across the region.

Taking it in their Stride’s... a £500,000 dispersal on the premises of Courtauld home: AFTER months, if not years, of a scarcity of on-the-premises house sales, this summer has seen the genuine article come the way of a number of provincial auctioneers, the latest being the sale of the contents of Cooke’s House in West Burton, near Pulborough, West Sussex held by Chichester auctioneers Stride’s.

With only seven others known to exist, this pair of 1750s Worcester gugglets was destined for success when offered on July 22 at Bristol Auction Rooms. Acquired fairly recently by a local private source, the 9in (24cm) high pair were originally estimated at just £400-600.

ONE of the most provocative icons of the British Pop Art movement is Allen Jones’ (b.1937) Table. The original 1969 version of this work – listed in Volker Kahmen’s Eroticism in Contemporary Art as being in the Collection Ludwig, Aachen – was an uncompromising fetish object showing the life-size model naked apart from her leather boots, gloves and bodice gazing at herself in a mirror.

THE response to the Art Deco style in Italy was different from that of the other Northern European countries – often humorous, sometimes surreal and occasionally bordering on the kitsch. These are certainly characteristics of the earthenware figures of Enrico and Elena Scavini’s Lenci factory that playfully combine hippo-riding brunettes with coquettish blondes climbing skyscrapers.

Planning to shortly reopen their Marlborough saleroom, Hamptons have appointed John Haycraft, formerly of Phillips and Dreweatt Neate, as senior valuer and auctioneer.

There were some interesting signs of the times when the superbly preserved Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) canvas, Autumn Gold, right, came under the hammer with an estimate of £40,000-70,000 on the first day of the Newcastle sale held by Anderson & Garland (15% buyer’s premium) on June 17-20.

TWO months ago in our Decoration and Design column we reported the launch of the Metal Gallery in Mayfair, a new showcase for contemporary metalwork of all kinds.

In terms of ‘Old Masters’ in their strictest sense, the July 9 sale sale at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Knightsbridge might have been conspicuously short of quality, but the presence of this fine George Stubbs (1724-1806) canvas of a dark bay in a landscape. right, gave proceedings a lift when it sold at £1.75m to an American collector represented by London dealer Ray Waterhouse in the room.

EDINBURGH dealership Georgian Antiques celebrate their 25th anniversary this September and to mark the occasion partner John Dixon will be available for the whole month for free valuations of furniture and other antiques at their warehouse at 10 Pattison Street, Leith Links.