London

From the beaches of Newquay to the Kyle of Lochalsh, there was barely a corner of the British Isles not represented at Christie’s South Kensington’s sale of travel posters on September 12, but the appeal of the top ranked poster had more to do with sport than travel.

ORIENTAL: A large, single-owner eclectic Oriental gathering ranging from Chinese jades and scholars’ objects to Contemporary paintings, Japanese lacquerwares and Burmese woodcarving went under the hammer at Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms on September 10.

LONDON: BUSINESS was surprisingly brisk at the preview reception of the Chelsea Antiques Fair last Thursday evening (September 12) with one dealer covering his costs within hours of the doors opening.

FOLLOWING the cancellation of a one-day fair scheduled for the Rembrandt Hotel, South Kensington last Sunday (September 15) the organiser, Edward Davidson, told the Antiques Trade Gazette he is definitely continuing with Heritage Antiques Fairs and although he is currently looking at other venues, he might return to the Rembrandt.

ORIENTAL: A large, single-owner eclectic Oriental gathering ranging from Chinese jades and scholars’ objects to Contemporary paintings, Japanese lacquerwares and Burmese woodcarving went under the hammer at Bonhams’ Bond Street rooms on September 10.

NOW in its 15th year, and after a few hiccups, the 20/21 British Art Fair has been on a roll for the past couple of years and its popularity should only be enhanced by its move to the Common-wealth Institute in Kensington High Street, London W8, where it will run from September 18 to 22.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a panoply of diseases to strike down the most seasoned, inoculated travellers with a bout of hypochondria, so imagine what it was like when Henry Morton Stanley entered the bush 100 years ago, armed only with this case of patent Victorian medicine.

The Margaret Cadman Collection - Preview: The short supply of good quality period ceramics (indeed of all antiques) compared to the golden era of past collecting is a constant lament these days and one often wonders just what has happened to all of them? For several thousand pieces the answer is that they have been squirrelled away for decades in a large Victorian house on the South Coast.

LONDON antique dealer Robert Hirschhorn lives in his showroom and it is the interior of his Camberwell Georgian town house which exemplifies his look, which he terms “Smart Country”.

The four-day Decorex International interior design trade fair runs this year from September 22-25 at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.

The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair, the event that pioneered the decorative look for antiques fairs and the first to realise the growing importance of the interior design trade, celebrates its autumn staging this month at its Battersea Park marquee from September 24-29.

THIS month, the international autumn fairs season gets seriously under way and the marker for the off in London is the country’s longest continually running event, the twice-yearly Chelsea Antiques Fair which will return to Chelsea Old Town Hall in the King’s Road for the 95th time from September 13 to 22.

From the lakes of Killarney to the golf links of St Andrews via the Norfolk Broads, there is hardly any corner of Ireland and the British Isles that is not covered by Christie’s South Kensington’s sale of Travel Posters, which takes place next week on September 12.

LONDON: THE Greenwich Development Agency has just published a new guide in a bid to boost the trade in antiques and collectables in the south east London borough.

THE pocket Derringer was a popular weapon for Western movie card-sharps, proving discretion could get the better of valour, but these palm-sized precursors look more lethal to the user than the intended victim.

Unfortunate timing, rather than the quality of entries or the state of the collectors’ market, was to blame for patchy interest and selective bidding in Bonham’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 582-lot Entertainment sale on July 24, according to specialist Toby Wilson.

The extraordinary prices realised for football memorabilia such as the £140,000 bid at Christie’s South Kensington for Pele’s Brazilian 1970 World Cup Final shirt reflect sporting collectors’ current obsession with the beautiful game.

THE acquisition of a unique collection of Afghan textiles has highlighted the cash crisis at the British Museum. Despite spending £34,000 on the collection, including a £26,000 grant from the National Arts Collection Fund, the BM’s ethnographic textiles collection has nowhere to display it.

Ever keen to come up with new auction formats that stimulate the interest of private buyers, Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) held their first sale of sporting and ornithological pictures combined with sporting guns at Knightsbridge on August 7-8.

This muscular terracotta modellino of a moor, Il Moro, 2ft 75/8in high (80.5cm), attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), wrested the top slot from a powerfully modelled pair of 16th century bronzes in Sotheby’s (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) 174-lot European Sculpture and Works of Art 900-1900 auction on July 9.