44 23rd June 2012 dealers’ dossier
Anna Brady reports
email:
annabrady@atgmedia.com tel: 020 7420 6625
Love at first sight and a new lease of life for Laurence
AFTER years away, dealer Laurence Mitchell has returned to Camden Passage – where his mother also once had a shop. He is trading in Pierrepoint Row, sharing premises with his partner Yvette Pathare, who has run Aquamarine Antiques at No 14 for the past seven years. Chatting at the Olympia fair last
week, Yvette said that Laurence had walked into her shop last December and it was love at first sight. Then she discovered that it was actually her shop from which Laurence had dealt when he was in Camden Passage before. Laurence is a specialist in Meissen
porcelain but says he “trades in general across much of the sphere which antiques covers, carrying 18th and 19th century or earlier Oriental and European ceramics and works of art, and some 20th century”. He started in Camden Passage in
1973 and stayed until about 1996, when he moved to Bournemouth, but he also traded in Portobello Road for a while. Aquamarine offers glass, military and collectables. The next, larger and updated,
edition of Laurence’s Meissen Collectors’ Catalogue, first published in 2004, will probably be available early next year. Outside work, Laurence campaigns
to help people with Asperger’s Syndrome and their families, partly through a website www.
lifebeyondlabels.com. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s a decade ago, at the age of 47, and is looking for a publisher for a book he has written about his experience. Contact him on 020 3609 5362 or on email at
lpj3591@gmail.com
Correction
THE Old Bakery Antiques shop, whose quirky Diamond Jubilee themed window display was featured in ATG No 2044, is in Wymondham in Leicestershire, not in Norfolk, as was previously stated. Apologies.
More and better: the
■ Redesigned for 2012, Masterpiece must now focus on making money for exhibitors
GLAMOROUS, imaginative, fresh, unashamedly expensive and just a bit OTT – Masterpiece London is back for a third time.
The 2012 Masterpiece fair runs
from June 28 to July 4, with a preview on June 27, in the same location as last year, a pretty phenomenal marquee with a red-brick facade on the South Grounds of The Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. The fair launches the second
wave of the now-divided London June season for art and antiques, opening its doors ten days or so after Olympia and Art Antiques London close theirs, but in time for the capital’s major art sales in the auction rooms. Masterpiece is essentially a dealer-
organised fair, co-founded by the furniture dealers Harry Apter of Apter Fredericks, Giles Hutchinson Smith of Mallett, Thomas Woodham-Smith (who was also at the time at Mallett), Simon Phillips of Ronald Phillips and the president of Dutch stand builders Stabilo, Harry van der Hoorn. Nicola Winwood, formerly at
Grosvenor House, is fair director and joining this year is the art adviser Philip Hewat-Jaboor, who takes on the two- year role of non-executive chairman from Thomas Woodham-Smith. Thomas’s infectious zeal will now
be channelled into his new position as creative director, concentrating on the future direction and vision of this work in progress – or adding the pixie dust and magic as he puts it. Part of this vision has always been
that the event should break the mould of the traditional antiques fair – the fusty, fuddy-duddy image – and make it into a glamorous experience, fusing art and antiques with wine, classic cars, jewellery and hospitality from Caprice Holdings in order to attract a new and younger audience, particularly those City folk with bonuses burning a hole in their Savile Row pockets. So to what extent has it succeeded in
these aims in its first couple of years? It certainly looks the part and pulls in
the punters (an impressive 28,500 last year), many of whom would not normally frequent an antiques fair, adding to a vibrant and optimistic buzz so often lacking at these events. But the cold, hard question of sales
Above: the Houghton Hall red lacquer bachelor’s chest will be a highlight on the stand of London furniture dealers Apter Fredericks at Masterpiece. The c.1705, 3ft 3in (1m) high scarlet and gilt japanned writing desk, is profusely decorated with a chinoiserie landscape of pagodas, mounted figures and various flora and fauna. Previously in the collection of the Marquis of Cholmondeley of Houghton Hall, Norfolk, and Sir Phillip Sassoon of Trent Park, Hertfordshire, it is now priced at £450,000.
Ancient & Modern
PARIS antiquities dealers Galerie Chenel plan to mix antiquities with a collection of Picasso’s ceramics to create a contemporary room set on their stand at Masterpiece. Brothers Adrian and Ollivier Chenel have grown up with Picasso ceramics – their parents have been collecting them for 30 years – and feel they meld well with ancient works. Among the pieces for sale is this c.1388-1292BC, 10¼in (26cm) high Egyptian limestone female head, right, previously in the collection of Pierre and Claude Verité.
“It is by far the most impressive Egyptian head we ever had and only a few of that period have been around on the market lately,” says Ollivier, who has priced the head at €480,000.
across the board is a more difficult issue. Last year while sales of modern
art and jewellery, for instance, were strong, dealers in other areas such as period furniture or with stock of a more academic appeal often struggled. Paying for the costly structure and
stand build, lavish entertainment and marketing make it an expensive fair to take part in. Now, exhibitors need to start seeing
some serious financial return if they are to keep signing up for it, however much they are keen to see the event succeed as London’s answer to a truly top-end and international art and antiques fair – a ‘mini-Maastricht’ as it is so often dubbed. For the first two events, Masterpiece’s
Above: c.1388-1292BC Egyptian limestone head – €480,000 from Galerie Chenel at Masterpiece.
marketing avoided that word ‘antiques’ like the plague, instead repeatedly referring to ‘the best of the best’, a rather elusive slogan which irritated a few exhibitors and perplexed some of the public. “We all felt rather chastised by the fact
that a lot of people didn’t know what Masterpiece was actually selling,” says Thomas Woodham-Smith. “Antiques can be a tricky word with
negative connotations – no one wants to be described as ‘an antique’ for instance. “But it is what we do and we decided
we had better just face up to it – we’re proud of the range of stock and exhibitors and don’t want any of them to feel undervalued.”
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