This new venue is a truly distinctive addition to The Antiques Dealers Fair Limited’s portfolio of boutique-style antiques weekends and building on the success of the luxury antiques weekend formula, bookings for the 30 stands are already 95% confirmed.
The fair brings together collectors, interior decorators, private and corporate buyers to enjoy and buy from a superb variety of quality works of art including town and country furniture, oil and watercolour paintings, sculpture and original book illustrations, maps and prints, jewellery, arms and armour, oriental carpets and rugs, 20th century glass, fine antique boxes and objets d’art. Exhibitors are predominantly members of either the British Antiques Dealers’ Association or LAPADA The Association of Art & Antiques Dealers.
One of the fair’s highlights comes from well-respected local dealer Holly Johnson Antiques from Macclesfield, bringing a superb walnut and thuya sideboard, stamped by Gillows of Lancaster, and made by B Braithwaite in 1877 to the designs of Bruce Talbert (£24,000). Talbert was one of the most influential designers of the Aesthetic period and created a number of pieces for the Gillows’ stand at the Great Exhibition in 1872. This cabinet was specially made for the 1st floor of the Grand Midland Hotel at St Pancras Station.
Other Cheshire dealers exhibiting include Baron Fine Art, bringing a watercolour of ‘The Carved Parlour, Crewe Hall, Cheshire’ by Hughson Hawley (fl 1880-1931) priced at £2,600; Church Street Antiques from Altrincham with 18th and 19th century British fine furniture; Jo Bennett Original Pictures with original works of quality by dedicated artists, many of whom are based in the north-west; and oak and country furniture and quirky accessories from Melody Antiques include a Georgian oak candle box with fretting from Cheshire, c1790, price £240.
Amongst the fine furniture on Bath based Freshfords Fine Antiques’ stand is a rare Regency Ceylonese rosewood marquetry specimen woods centre table in the manner of Thomas Hope, c1830, selling for £15,500. Other highlights include a Coromandel and brass mounted games compendium retailed by D. Cattaneo of Leeds, c 1870, £5,850 from Hampton Antiques. The decorative games compendium includes an ivory and Coromandel chess and backgammon board, an ivory Staunton pattern chess set, an ivory cribbage board, two ivory “finger” pointers, a set of thirty ivory backgammon counters, one ivory and one bone shaker, original playing cards and further bone counters.
There is an abundance of fine art from which to choose, including ‘The Rush Cart came to Lees Brook’ by Helen Bradley MBE (1900-1979), priced at £210,000 and ‘A Visit to the Cobblers’ by Pietro Saltini (1839-1908) at £98,000 from Haynes Fine Art of Broadway. Other picture dealers exhibiting include Callaghan Fine Paintings & Contemporary Bronze, Cambridge Fine Art and Angela Hone Watercolours.
The fair includes plenty of dazzling jewellery to catch the eye. A special collectors’ piece from T Robert is a rare 18ct gold, enamel and opal Arts & Crafts necklace by the artist John Gatecliff, Chester 1907, priced at £5,850. Plaza is bringing bold and dramatic pieces by names such as Tiffany & Co and Van Cleef & Arpels as well as classic and antique jewellery. Stephen Kalms Antiques has a silver George II silver coffee pot by George Wickes, London 1741 (£6,000). Wickes was one of the most important English makers who mainly worked for nobility, including the Prince of Wales.