UK

BELFAST was the city that built the Titanic and the connection between the doomed liner and the Northern Irish capital has always been strong. The news of the tragedy was devastating to the thousands of men who had worked on the ship, their families, and to all the people of Belfast, perhaps none more so than James Lord Pirrie, uncle of Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic and chairman of Harland & Wolff, the famous shipyard where it was built.

Devon auctioneers SJ Hales (15 per cent buyer’s premium) have moved to a wider field than the ceramics, and particularly Staffordshire, on which they founded their reputation but this area remains their strength. The 500 varied ceramic lots and nearly 200 Staffordshire pieces took most of the better prices among the 1500 offerings at the new Bovey Tracey rooms on March 12 and 13.

OVERSEAS and home dealers were out in force on April 6 for the official launch of one of the more exciting recent trade initiatives, Antiques Trade Space at Newark, Nottinghamshire.

Back on March 18, Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) held a sale devoted entirely to Export Arts of the China Trade in their Bond Street rooms. Running to 277 lots, it comprised material from both China and Japan, the bulk of it ceramics but also featuring metalwares, ivories, furniture, paintings and other works of art.

THE distillation of a life of taste, dedication to a collecting field and unique expertise. This rare confluence of qualities may be seen this Thursday, May 1, when Neales of Nottingham present the 163-lot single-owner collection of one of their own cataloguers.

Sourced from a small church in the West Country but apparently once part of the furniture at William Beckford’s splendid Fonthill Abbey, this George III pair of mahogany hall benches (one shown) were the highlight of Duke’s sale in Dorchester on April 17.

AFTER 15 years in the glass business, Cheshire organiser Patricia Hier knows her field well and it shows at her twice-yearly National Glass Collectors Fair, the next of which will be held at the National Motorcycle Museum, West Midlands on Sunday May 11.

The Illicit Antiquities Research Centre at Cambridge University have set out a list of short- and long-term objectives to help restore works to the museums of Iraq.

WITH around 80 exhibitors the Spring Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair was well down on its usual total and visitor figures were also down at the marquee in Battersea Park between April 8 and 13.

LONDON specialists Dix Noonan Webb (15% buyer’s premium) had their best ever sale of Orders, Decorations and Medals on April 2. Their press releases make things easy for your poor ink slinger. They give all sorts of details offering a view of the actual state of the market – hard facts, not speculative interpretation.

MURMURS around the trade indicate that business at fairs is easier out of London than in the capital, which bodes well for one of our top provincial events, The Harrogate Antique and Fine Art Fair held from May 1 to 5 at the Harrogate International Centre, bang in the centre of town.

Topping the sale of fine watches held at Bonhams’ Bond Street (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) rooms on April 15, was this 18th century gold pair cased verge watch. This had a signed and numbered movement (562) by Daniel Delander, who was free of the Clockmakers Company in 1699, and was contained in plain gold cases marked for London, 1716.

FOUNDED in 1990 by Devonshire-based Madeline Marchand, who operates as Fair Antiques, the next twice-yearly East Berkshire Antiques Fair will be held at the Berkshire College of Agriculture, near Maidenhead, over the Bank Holiday weekend of May 3 to 5.

Wimbledon-based Paola Francia-Gardiner, who operates as P&A Antiques, holds two fairs in one this weekend at the Chelsea Village Hotel in London’s Fulham Road when on Sunday April 27 the Art Deco & 20th Century Design Fair runs in tandem with the Fashion for Passion Fair.

Pictured right is the highlight of Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) first football memorabilia sale of 2003 on March 26. A Cup Tie at Crystal Palace, Corinthians v. Manchester City, by Charles Ernest Cundall, in oil on panel 231/4in x 2ft 51/2in (60 x 75cm), signed C. Cundall lower right, set a new auction record for the artist when it was knocked down to London dealer Chris Beetles for £42,000, double the upper estimate.

HOLLOWAYS of Banbury are set to re-open their doors after a £100,000 refurbishment. The project, which started in January and was due for completion as the Antiques Trade Gazette went to press, focused on improving facilities for both viewings and the sales themselves.

Illustrated are a pair of ice pails, covers and liners from the Duke of Newcastle’s Derby porcelain service, c.1797, dispersed by Mellors and Kirk in Nottingham on April 10.

THE status of Sir Kyffin Williams (b.1918) as Wales’s most famous living artist and one of the Principality’s principal artistic exports, was once again confirmed when this oil on canvas, right, Pentraeth, Anglesey took £10,000 at Christie’s South Kensington.

DOMINATED as the Doncaster sale at Wilkinsons on 23 February was by solid English oak, it also had its more esoteric moments in the high-price range. But in fact Sid Wilkinson was rather disappointed in the results on these two very different examples of carving.

For a Scottish antique, no provenance is more guaranteed to stir the blood than a connection, however tenuous, with a romantic outlaw. At Lyon & Turnbull’s sale on 26 March the link was Rob Roy McGregor, or at least the cattle rustler’s loyal kinsman and Glasgow magistrate Baillie Nicol Jarvie.