UK

The Norfolk auctioneers Keys got a lot of media exposure in March when they took a bid of £22,000 for a collection of letters, cards, etc, written by the late Diana, Princess of Wales, to a Mrs Pendrey, a long-term employee and friend from her Althorp days, but in this sale another small selection of letters, apparently from the same source, failed to sell against an estimate of £7500-10,000.

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.

Two D-type Jaguars, one shown here being used as a child’s plaything, the other an actual boy’s toy, both featured in Bonhams’ September 6 sale of sports cars and automobilia at Goodwood.

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.

Sold for £180 as part of a Hamptons sale on August 1 was the handbill exhorting Englishmen! to take up arms against Napoleon, right.

It wasn’t until Campbell Archibald Mellon (1876-1955) retired from business at the end of the First World War that he devoted himself to painting. He moved to Gorleston-on-Sea in Norfolk and the bulk of his artistic output is focused on the beaches and holidaymakers in the area.

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.

WHEN Tom Crowther founded Crowther of Syon Lodge dealing in antique chimneypieces in 1876, the prevailing design trends were moving from Gothic Revival to Aesthetic, and over the next 125 years the Middlesex firm have serviced every subsequent design trend.

MANY auctioneers decide against holding sales in August, traditionally the quietest month of the auction calender. These Staffordshire auctioneers, Richard Winterton chose to go ahead with their monthly sales which, as so often throughout the year, was led by brown furniture.

WHILE prices for run-of-the-mill silver have been all but flat-lining since the extraordinary Seventies boom, there are welcome blips from time to time to show the market isn’t quite dead.

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 sale on August 16 was the first time Bonhams, Honiton (17.5% buyer’s premium) had held a specialist collectors’ sale without cigarette and postcards after the decision was made to sell these at New Bond Street. With the sale now focused firmly on Goss and crested china, pot lids, Prattware and commemorative ceramics, lots of new buyers flooded in making the sale a big success.

A 19th century Aesthetic movement ebonised Japanesque cabinet was orginally housed in the Yorkshire home of a Mr Mossman, a wealthy Leeds wool merchant. When he moved from his house in Menston, near Ilkley, the cabinet passed into the hands of the new owner, the well-known music critic Ernest Bradbury and has passed by descent ever since.

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.