Chantal Fortune is one of three Antiques Young Guns in Ireland and is the country’s newest member, with her enthusiastic entry on the AYG site detailing her passion for antiques and in particular antique Irish lace.
Indeed, one of her ultimate goals is to open a museum of antique Irish lace.
Fortune studied antiques and fine arts at The Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers (IPAV) in Dublin and deals in decorative pieces online. Last month she held the third of her annual two-day antiques fairs at the Wells House and Gardens, a Victorian mansion near Kilmuckridge in Co Wexford.
She told ATG: “We had an excellent turnout and a fine selection of 11 dealers from across Ireland selling jewellery, Irish silver, china, pictures, furniture and carpets, including Sandra Hogan Heirloom Antiques from Cork and Wild Atlanteaques from Kilkee in Co Clare, as well as furniture restoration from Wexford’s Maurice Molloy.”
Fortune also offered valuations during the fair and among the pieces brought in were “a Victorian rose gold memento mori mourning stick pin, with the deceased’s locket of hair and tiny pearls in a beautiful silk-lined and leather case, and a 1778 engraving of The Three Graces”. The print was in “fine condition but the frame was in a dire state”.
The next antiques fair which Fortune is organising is at the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland in Dublin on November 25.
