UK

WITNEY specialist in fine period furniture David Harvey, head of W.R.Harvey & Co, was recently re-elected for a second term as mayor of the Oxfordshire town (having had one year out of office) but is not cutting down on his busy trading schedule, starting with manning his customary stand at the 97th Chelsea Antiques Fair from September 17 to 22.

Goldsmiths Hall, the home of the venerable City of London Livery Company, is the venue to check out the latest in contemporary silverware and jewellery next month. Billed as ”the Chelsea Flower Show of the silver and jewellery world” and celebrating its 21st anniversary, the fair will feature 90 exhibitors representing the cream of British talent from these fields with a wide range of work spanning cutting edge to more traditional designs.

WELL-established, and increasingly a summer favourite, the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair will be mounted by Cooper Antiques Fairs at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire this weekend from August 29 to 31. There are three Westonbirts a year but, with nigh-on 70 exhibitors, this is the biggest.

AN INTERESTING and historic show is coming up at London’s Plus One Plus Two Galleries, 161-163 Seymour Place, W1, from October 8 to November 1 when Classic Romantic Modern combines work from the 1930s designer Jean-Michel Frank with the accomplished contemporary architectural artist Carl Laubin.

HAMPTONS re-open their Marlborough salerooms this week after a refurbishment that has taken the best part of a year. John Haycraft, formerly of Phillips, will head up the team there and will be assisted by Sarah Eames, who comes from outside of the industry.

One weekend every summer, this quiet South Yorkshire village is overwhelmed by enthusiasts, collectors and dealers of antique bottles, pot lids and advertising, who converge to participate in the collector’s fair, Elsecar National, and to bid in BBR auction’s major sale hosted on an adjacent site.

The strong collecting base for miniatures has cushioned this market from the wider economic vagaries that have affected other more trade-dependent fields such as furniture and silver. Bonhams Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) specialist Emma Rutherford reckoned around 80 per cent of entries sold privately in their 193-lot routine miniature and silhouettes sale back on July 1. “Our buyers tend to be retired and tend to have their money readily accessible,” she said.

The Somerset-based restoration and conservation specialists Everett Fine Art Ltd will launch what they believe is the first emergency service for art and antiques this month.

Twice a year Russian silver and icons are included in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) routine miniature and vertu sales and it was the 44-lot Russian silver section that saw some of the most consistent bidding in this 587-lot July 15 outing.

SCOTTISH provincial silver is one of the only consistently strong areas of the silver market and, if recent sales in Edinburgh are anything to go by, Banff silver is what everyone wants.

THE success of Christie`s marines sale in New York will no doubt be heartening news for Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) who have been holding specialist marine picture sales for the last 20 years and whose latest offering, the second so far this year, is due to be held at their Bond Street rooms on September 16.

WE frequently comment on the way in which successful dealers have to chase business wherever it may be and a case in point is Mayfair dealer Alistair Sampson who will not be seeing much of his Mount Street, London W1 showrooms once autumn is upon us.

AS autumn approaches, dealers are marking their diaries for some familiar calls and a favourite entry for the Home Counties trade will be The Petersfield Antiques Fair at The Festival Hall of the Hampshire town from September 5 to 7.

CLUBS: A ROCKY ride perhaps, but Lyon & Turnbull certainly had the best selection of clubs this year and the one real ace to give the market a fillip – a long-nose baffing spoon by George Daniel Brown of Blackheath and St Andrews, c.1850-60.

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.