17 January 2018
It seems that no Winter Antiques Show is complete without the intervention of weather-related issues. Perhaps the clue is in the timing: winter. This year, our sea container was diverted to Virginia and only docked in New York on the…
Read More...9 January 2018
Eighteenth-century Anglo-Indian furniture at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. Since the turn of the year, the British press and conservation groups have been justifiably applauding China’s ‘total ban’ on the trade in ivory. The stringent Chinese onslaught on their…
Read More...22 December 2017
In one of the final debates in the House of Lords before the Christmas recess, peers discussed the impact of the ivory trade on an elephant population under siege. Lord Carrington of Fulham (no relation of the former Foreign…
Read More...16 November 2017
In 2012, when the Brandon-Jones collection was acquired by the Nation through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, Red House in Bexleyheath (designed by Philip Webb for William Morris) was allocated several personal items that had belonged to Morris’s close associate…
Read More...1 October 2017
Thanks to some careful planning, and expert technical assistance from Aston Spinks (logistics) and Nicky Aubury (lighting), the set up for PAD 2017 was completed speedily, and with remarkable ease. By 8 am Berkeley Square was lined with trucks grabbing…
Read More...3 August 2017
While considerable evidence, such as insurance records, bills (perhaps matched to surviving furniture), letters, rate books and, sometimes, personal accounts, exists for the activities of larger cabinet-making firms, day-to-day records for smaller, more general workshops are far scarcer. Thus, it…
Read More...12 July 2017
Although, for now, the precise origins of this remarkable and perhaps unique masterpiece remain unknown, it is clearly an exceptional work by a talented designer and maker, and was surely commissioned for the grandest of interiors. Since this seemingly unique…
Read More...29 March 2017
For many years now, there has been a perception that so-called ‘traditional areas’ under the umbrella of the ‘decorative arts’ have fallen from favour. But what does this mean? Is this a reference to the market, or to public appreciation?…
Read More...6 March 2017
We spent an enjoyable weekend unpacking a truck-full of crates, each revealing a piece of furniture, an object or a picture, soon to be placed or hung on our expanded Maastricht stand. Thanks as ever to Aston Spinks (see below)…
Read More...18 January 2017
On Tuesday morning, so far spared the traditional Winter Antiques Show snow, we arrived at the nonetheless frigid Armory. Our shippers battled the mêlée of ‘troublesome trucks’ jockeying for position on a gridlocked Lexington Avenue. But, without the slightest hint…
Read More...12 December 2016
During a recent visit to Salisbury, I took some time to enjoy the magnificent cathedral. Walking past the north transept, my eye was caught by a life-size seated figure. On inspection this turned out to be a funerary monument to…
Read More...10 November 2016
C.F.A Voysey’s armchair, with a heart-shape in the back, is one of his most recognisable designs. The armchair with rush seat (above) is a close variant of this widely published model, which is itself known in various forms; see, for…
Read More...7 November 2016
As was acknowledged during their lifetimes, the crucial relationship between the fabulously wealthy patron and collector Alfred Morrison (1821-97), and the supremely talented enamel artist Charles Lepec (1830-90), led to much of Lepec’s artistic output, during the 1860s, finding a…
Read More...27 May 2016
According to the entirely justified headline to an online article in Apollo, ‘Antique ivory poses no threat to elephant conservation: in fact, it needs protection itself’ (see here). We all love elephants, and who brought up on Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar (below)…
Read More...17 May 2016
Just back from Chicago, where I was kindly invited to speak to the Antiquarians at the Art Institute of Chicago, on ‘Alfred Morrison (1821-97): an overlooked patron and collector of decorative arts’. This remarkable maecenas lived in Carlton House Terrace,…
Read More...19 April 2016
23 April 2016 marks the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. Shakespeare (1564-1616) is revered as the greatest figure in English literature. Although long admired, it was not until the Great Shakespeare Jubilee arranged in 1769 by the actor…
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