Print Edition

Trade bodies line up to make the case for art and antiques sector

The London Original Print Fair, now in its 32nd year, takes place at the Royal Academy from May 4-7 and features 51 international dealers and print publishers.

Nicholas Mellors Auctioneers in Newark has closed but Newark Antiques will continue to trade.

The Bovey Pottery Company, closed in 1957, would have passed into collecting history without incident had it not been for the ‘Our Gang’ collection of figures.

Johannes Schröder (1870-1942) was not only a wealthy German merchant but also a globetrotter and a pioneer in utilising the invention of photography to document his time.

The English porcelain specialist Simon Spero opens his 37th catalogued exhibition this week in his Kensington shop.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Gary Wallis is based in Henley-on-Thames, trades in anything from childhood collectables to potential heirlooms and is a regular at The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in Battersea.

Estimated at £500-800, a small Old Master painting of Christ wearing the crown of thorns drew spectacular competition at Adam’s of Dublin on April 9. It came from an institution in the Irish capital which the saleroom said was “doing some spring cleaning”. It was given the pick of around 100 paintings.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

Ken Garrard runs Origin Antiques with his father Steve. Their business is based in The Barn on Turkey Cock Lane near Colchester and sells antique, vintage and contemporary furniture.

No fewer than 840 lots were offered in the bumper April 5-6 sale held by Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium). The most successful of them, at a record £32,000, was a presentation copy of a pioneering work that has been described as “the first practical statement of socialist doctrine”, Robert Owen’s A New View of Society… of 1813-14.

An ‘Unfashionable’ single-owner collection from a London club attracted trade and private buyers. The 98-lot sale on April 5 was held by British pictures specialist Harry Moore-Gwyn at 25 Blythe Road (20% buyer’s premium) in West Kensington.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

The next Chelsea Art Fair takes place from April 27-30 and, as fair director Ben Cooper sees it, the attraction of the event comes down to two key elements: quality and breadth of selection.

A major attraction in a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of April 6 was the Samuel Hessel ‘DNA’ collection of scientific papers, journals and books.

MADAM – I have been reading the responses in your letters pages from the antiques trade to the stringent ivory laws appearing around the world.

Pictured here is one of several etchings by James Abbott McNeil Whistler that will feature in Swann Galleries’ sale of prints on May 2.

ATG’s selection of auction lots bought by internet bidders on thesaleroom.com from the period April 13-19, 2017. This includes both the highest prices over estimate and the top prices paid online.