Antiques Trade Gazette 29


The Chelsea alternative


AS an antidote to the competitive, smart London June fairs, why not try the tried- and-trusted – but very modest – thrice- yearly Little Chelsea Antiques Fair, the summer version of which runs at Chelsea Old Town Hall on the King’s Road, London SW3 on June 21 and 22.


It has been a trade favourite for more than 30 years and has had varying fortunes, indeed so varied that a few years ago it almost became extinct. However, it was taken over by exhibitor and silver dealer Daniel Cotton and is now blooming.


Expect some 60 exhibitors and a wide range of stock with the accent very much on the affordable. Admission £4, but £1 to the trade.


Goodwood dates


LAST week I announced that Galloway Antiques Fairs will launch a new event at Goodwood House, West Sussex next year.


I can now confirm the exact dates are March 25 to 27 and November 25 to 27.


local roots


dealers who had been uprooted from their traditional shops dotted along Second and Third Avenues.


But it also attracted many dealers from outside the area, some, such as Japanese art specialists Flying Cranes Antiques, top international names in their field. “We helped preserve the original shopping flavour of the area and provided New York City with a unique and revitalising cultural asset,” says Steve Roedler, director of the centre. African art specialist Brian Gaisford of Hemingway Antiques was the first tenant in the building and is still there, and another original tenant, Palace Galleries, returned last year after a 29-year gap.


Hunting rarity, the keynote at Keverne


AFTER many years, Mayfair Oriental dealer Roger Keverne’s Summer Exhibition is as much of a London institution as the June fairs, and this year’s is now underway on the second floor at 16 Clifford Street, London W1, and continues until the end of the month. More than 100 objects, many of them


from private collections, are offered with price tags from £3750 and rising to ‘price on application’, which implies a six-figure sum. Among the higher-priced PoA items is one of the highlights of the show, a large porcelain baluster jar and cover dating to the Kangxi period (1662-1772), painted in famille verte enamels with Europeans in a hunting scene. There are other recorded examples on this theme, but what makes this particular scene exceptionally rare is that it includes a Chinese lady riding in a carriage with a foreigner.


Other pieces of special note among the ceramics include a small group of Ding and Ding-type wares dating from the Northern Dong (960-1127) to the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), all from an English private collection; and two blanc-de-chine


Above: two of the Chinese treasures currently on sale at Roger Keverne’s exhibition. Left: a late Ming (1368-1644) ivory figure of Budai, just over 5in (13cm) high, for which Mr Keverne asks £32,000. From an English private collection, it was bought at Spink’s in London in 1984. Right: from a European collection, this rare Kangxi famille verteporcelain baluster jar and cover featuring Europeans in a hunting scene, 233


/4 in (60cm) high, is priced at £225,000.


figures – a 17th/18th century Buddha from the collection of J.M. Hu and a Buddhist luohan comparable to a Wanli (1573-1619) mark-and-period bronze version in the Tata Collection in Mumbai. Among the metalwork is a pair of 18th century gilt-bronze gu-form vases inlaid with semi-precious stones and a fine parcel-gilt bronze incense burner bearing the mark of Zhu Zhenming. It is in the style of the more celebrated Hu Wenming, in whose workshop Zhu must have honed his expertise. Mr Keverne is a published authority on


jade and always has a good selection on sale, on this occasion his offerings range from the Neolithic to the 18th century and include a white jade brush washer modelled as a peach, simply decorated with a shallow relief of a pair of bats. In other media, look out for a fine


archaic bronze wine vessel (jue) of the late Shang dynasty (c.1570-1045BC), formerly in the New York collection of Dr Robert Heilbroner, and an exquisite Qianlong silk embroidery decorated with seed pearls, similar to examples in the Imperial collections.


Albert Pierrepoint, potential life-saver


A rather gruesome, but curiously fascinating, bit of memorabilia caught the eye on the stand of Bloomsbury booksellers Jarndyce at the Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia from June 3 to 5. It was the Execution Diary and plaster of Paris death mask of Albert Pierrepoint (1905-1992), along with an archive of family photographs and other personal items. Albert was the third and most famous member of the


Pierrepoint family who served as the UK’s official hangman. In his


term of office from 1932 to 1956 he dispatched 435 men and women, including Ruth Ellis, the last woman to hang. The diary and deathmask were not to the taste of sensitive


fair-goers and are still on sale at the shop (Tel: 0207 631 4220) at £15,000 to £25,000. Jarndyce are asking for offers and emphasise that all proceeds will go to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. So the money raised from the effects of a man who took lives now goes to aid the men who save lives.


HALLS 17-19


Free Car Parking • Vetted for Authenticity For ticket bookings call: 0844 581 0827 or Book Online


www.antiquesforeveryone.co.uk Organised by


All bookings are subject to a single transaction fee. Rights of admission reserved. Security searches in operation. Visitors are not permitted to bring antiques into the fair.


22nd – 25th July 2010


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