Frieze Week grew up around two major Regent’s Park fairs: Frieze Masters, where Van Haeften stood, and its Contemporary counterpart Frieze London. These coincide with PAD London, a Modern and Contemporary design event in Mayfair, and for the first time in this timeslot, British Art Fair (BAF) in Chelsea. Meanwhile, the autumn edition of the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair ran in Battersea.
Frieze Masters (October 3-6) kicked off with a VIP preview on October 2.
Van Haeften said: “We had a good first day and sold to new buyers, which is great.”
Other early sales included a porphyry vase, which Colnaghi, sharing a stand with Contemporary art dealer Ben Brown Fine Arts, sold to a new client who collects Modern art, for a six-figure sum.
Agnews had a stand-out first day, selling four pictures including Alphonse Mucha’s A Nude, a 2ft x 18.5in (60 x 47cm) oil on canvas, and a portrait of a young woman by William Nicholson (1872-1949) called The Yellow Jersey.
Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert also started well, selling three works from its British Pop Art exhibition. A Peter Phillips, an Allen Jones and a Peter Blake, each in the region of £100,000, went to private collections.
Another red dot went on a second edition of The Three Voyages by James Cook, including the Death of Cook plate bound in, offered by Peter Harrington. It was priced at £45,000 and snapped up by a private buyer.
Didier Aaron sold Allée d’eau no2 by French Symbolist painter Charles Guilloux, and in the Collections section, Amsterdam dealership Van Der Meij Fine Arts parted with Reading by Candlelight, an oil on canvas by Danish artist Carl Holsøe (1863-1935).
Mod Brit highlights
Waterhouse & Dodd sold Peter Lanyon’s ink and gouache Blue Leaf at the British Art Fair offered for £34,000.
Further art sales took place during the opening hours of BAF, which ran from October 3-6 in the Saatchi Gallery. Waterhouse & Dodd sold several of its major works including a Peter Lanyon (1918-64), offered at £34,000, and a picture by Wilhelmina Barns- Graham, ticketed at £17,500, both to British buyers. It also sold a Paul Feiler, offered for a six-figure sum, to a US client.
A David Hockney went from the stand of Goodman Fine Art, offered for a price in the region of £85,000, and a 1986 oil on canvas by Gillian Ayres was sold by Freya Mitton.
Elsewhere at the fair, dealer Andrew Sim sold a quartet of First World War pastels, offered at £45,000, to the National Army Museum (see ATG No 2410 for more details about these pastels).
This unique lamp by Paavo Tynell was offered for a price in the region of £45,000 at PAD where it was sold by Modernity.
Over at PAD (September 30-October 6) in Berkeley Square, sales included a unique ceiling lamp designed by Paavo Tynell (1890-1973) for a villa in Helsinki, which Modernity offered for a price in the region of £45,000.
Fellow exhibitor Martin Levy of H Blairman & Sons reported parting with works by Charles Robert Ashbee and Christopher Dresser. But he added: “While good business has been done by us and across the fair, there is a sense of uncertainty as a result of many external factors.”
Flurry of good results
The Battersea Decorative (October 1-6) kicked off with a flurry of good results. Hansord made one of the highlight sales: a 17th century inlaid ebony cabinet telling the story of Noah’s ark, which was offered for £12,500 and sold to a client the dealership met at the fair last year.
Martin D Johnson Antiques reported a near sell-out opening day, which included a pair of French cherrywood pharmacy cabinets ticketed at £15,000. Meanwhile, Joshua Lumley sold a room-sized Oushak carpet, c.1890, for around £10,000 and Maison Artefact had an 18th century Swedish painted window blind ticketed at £5500 snapped up.
Dealer Nick Jones said: “I can’t remember a busier opening day. It was relentless shopping. Serious people were looking to buy, both decorators and private buyers.”
