18 28th July 2012 dealers’ dossier


Anna Brady reports


email: annabrady@atgmedia.com tel: 020 7420 6625


Market winds down for


■ With dealers now taking a breather we take a look back


AFTER a frantic few weeks, all is suddenly quiet in London. Or rather, all is quiet for the art and antiques world as Olympics fever truly starts to


strengthen its grip on the city. But before the market fi nally wound


down and the capital’s dealers packed their bags for the summer, Master Drawings London (June 27–July 5) and Master Paintings Week (June 29-July 6) topped off the season, coinciding with that big week of early July Old Master sales at the city’s auction houses and the third Masterpiece London fair. While the auction houses release


price lists and churn out post-sale press releases full of a bewildering array of facts, fi gures and statistics, for obvious reasons the private sales conducted around the concurrent dealer exhibitions in St James’s and Mayfair over that week are far more diffi cult to judge. Both MDL, now in its 12th year, and


Time for a further update on twitter


THIS week, the Dealer’s Dossier has morphed into something akin to an out-of-date episode of Springwatch, with proof that slow trade in period furniture is not necessarily bad for everyone. While he managed to stop one of


the numerous resident birds from nesting in a bureau, Jon Tredant of Carradale Farm Antiques, based in The Antiques Complex at Exeter Airport, missed this cunning lady who set up a sumptuous home atop one of a pair of his giltwood corner cupboard in May. Not wanting to disturb the bird,


Jon left her to it and last week confi rmed that she later hatched two chicks who have now fl own the nest and joined some of the 100 odd other birds who call the vast warehouse complex their home. Where next one wonders? Nestling


in a what-not?


MPW, now four years old, are fi rst and foremost marketing initiatives, providing a more compelling reason for the serious collectors and curators in town that week to make the effort to visit the galleries of London’s specialists in the fi eld, at the same time as encouraging interested visitors who are new to the often daunting world of commercial galleries. Both events host evening receptions in the galleries and provide a chance to catch up with longstanding patrons and meet new faces, with an intimate environment more conducive to a thoughtful, unhurried purchase than


Above: Dickinson returned to Master Drawings London this year with a sell- out exhibition of watercolours by Italian artist Carlo Labruzzi (1748-1817), a highlight of which was this view of the Colosseum from the Palatine Hill, 15 x 21in (38 x 54cm), sold with an asking price of £50,000.


Left: A Still Life with Fruit and a Ham by Laurens Craen (active 1646-1663/1670), a 19in x 2ft 1in (49 x 64cm) oil on panel sold during Master Paintings Week by Johnny van Haeften with an asking price of £300,000.


the high-octane excitement of an auction – for many dealers, sales happen after the event. Galleries seemed generally pleased


with the turn-out this year, with new visitors reported from China and across Europe as well as from the UK itself, and numerous curators from British, European and US institutions. MPW’s new Smartphone App seems to have been a nifty addition, and participant


Deborah Gage saw several new faces appearing in her gallery clutching Blackberrys and iPhones. Hi-tech combined with lo-tech, as rickshaws ferried visitors between the 23 galleries and three auctioneers who took part. As with well-known single-owner


sales at auction, those special, one-off exhibitions featuring a provenanced collection or an assemblage of works by a certain artist certainly seemed to draw the most attention and sales, as collectors were attracted to the rareness of the opportunity. MPW participant Ben Elwes Fine


Art witnessed an eager reaction to his show of First Impressions: Landscape Oil Sketches 1780-1860, from the John Lishawa collection, the well-known oil-sketch connoisseur. The gallery was very pleased with the reaction and by the end of the week had sold six works with prices ranging from £10,000-£40,000 to new buyers, alongside a further sale to an existing client. Meanwhile, Dickinson returned to


Above: among the works from the John Lishawa collection sold during Master Paintings Week by Ben Elwes Fine Art was View of the landscape near Naples, with mountains and the sea in the distance by Parisian artist Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy (1757-1841), a 10½ x 15in (26 x 39cm) oil on canvas form c.1810-15, which was priced in the region of £20,000-30,000.


Master Drawings London this year with a sell-out exhibition of work by Carlo Labruzzi, (1748-1817) titled The Grand Tour. The exhibition, staged in association with Bill Thomson and curated by Sir Timothy Clifford, comprised around 100 watercolours and drawings taken from two albums compiled by the artist and kept as one collection until now.


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