“Streets full of water, please advise.” Oscar Wilde’s famous telegram from Venice could have been sent from London by any of the thousands of visitors arriving for the Olympic Games, such has been the unprecedented amount of rainfall in the UK in what has been euphemistically described as the ‘summer’ of 2012.

It was not, however, the British weather that prompted U.S. presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to conclude that London was not ready to host the Games, an utterance that will have done little to endear him to the British. Fortunately for Romney, his diplomatic blunder was quickly overshadowed by more diverting incidents such as the moment when a hand-bell being rung in the build-up to the Games by accident-prone UK Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt flew off its handle and narrowly missed injuring a passerby. That is what is known as “a clanger.”

And then there was the Olympic opening ceremony, directed by British film director Danny Boyle, whose theatrical extravaganza marked a welcome change from the tradition adopted by most previous host countries of getting countless thousands of synchronized performers to create shapes that can only be seen from outer space.

But the Olympics also coaxed some amusing cultural innovations from visiting nations, such as the “London Booster” created by Czech sculptor David Cerny to mark the Czech Republic’s participation in the XXX Olympiad. This was a red ‘Routemaster’ London bus which had been fitted with a pair of hydraulic arms that allows it to perform push-ups.

And so to the art market. It would be easy to assume that the gloomy weather would have dealt a killer blow to the UK’s summer art fairs, but the post-event reports paint an altogether more positive picture. Malletts, one of London’s oldest and most respected furniture dealerships, claim to have enjoyed their best Masterpiece Fair this year, which was held between June 28 and July 4.

“This has been our most successful fair of the 21st century”, said Giles Hutchinson Smith, chief executive of Mallett, which recently moved into new premises in a former bishop’s palace in Mayfair. That ecclesiastical connection proved appropriate, for among the more significant items sold by Mallett at the Masterpiece fair was an important Carlton House desk

commissioned by the Duke of Clarence, who later became William IV. Mallett informs us that the rare mahogany and satinwood table was presented by the Duke to his chaplain, the Rev. William Ellis, in 1797, “probably as a gift to the clergyman for having discreetly baptized the 10 illegitimate children he had had by his mistress, the Irish actress Dorothea Jordan.”

Mallett also found buyers at the fair for a rare and recently discovered set of 10 Regency mahogany dining chairs, circa 1820, attributed to the notable firm of Gillow’s of Lancaster and decorated with hunting scenes by John Nost Satorius, while a rare late 18thcentury bronze figure of a shepherd, in the manner of the English sculptor John Cheere, also fetched a six-figure sum.

The UK is currently hosting thousands of visitors from around the world who have flown in for the Olympic Games, but one wonders how many of them will venture beyond the capital into the English countryside. American guests heading towards the West Country may be interested to make a short detour to the American Museum in Britain, located in the historic spa town of Bath. This month the museum is hosting an exhibition of photographs from the collection of textile designer Christopher Hyland. The exhibition, entitled “By Way of These Eyes,” features work by many of America’s most celebrated photographers, including Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts and Sally Mann. Hyland believes his collection “represents in general the robust and dynamic spirit of American optimism in the 20th century” and thus, appropriately for Olympic year, iconic sporting images abound.

Hyland has also included some rather more idiosyncratic images of his own making, including some studies of tattooed men.

The British are generally well-practised at making the best of bad weather but this year has really tested the nation’s patience. The almost incessant rain dealt a severe blow to one aspect of British visual culture that traditionally comes into its own during the summer months — the outdoor sculpture display. While many of the permanent sculpture parks pressed ahead with their annual summer season, one or two of the temporary summer sculpture exhibitions had to be canceled, including the Littlecote House Sculpture Show in Hungerford, Berkshire.

Happily, the exhibition curated by British sculptor David Worthington, who is vice president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, at the famous Chelsea Physic Garden went ahead. Twenty artists have contributed works to the show, which is entitled “Pertaining to Things Natural” and which continues until Oct. 31. Anyone who has visited the Chelsea Physic Garden will know what an intellectually and aesthetically stimulating environment it is.

One is always sure to come across some weird plant or species never previously encountered. It is to Worthington’s credit that he has enhanced that aspect of the garden by locating the sculptures in creative relationship to the indigenous flora. The range of works on display provides yet further testament to the imagination and skill of British artists who make “real” sculpture as opposed to getting a fabricator to manufacture large-scale toys. It is always pleasing to find work by Peter Randall-Page, who has an extraordinary instinct for working with stone, but also to see work by less familiar names such as the delicate creation by Jo Coupe which adds a touch of whimsical magic to the Chelsea show.

In contrast to the Chelsea Physic Garden’s bucolic attractions, the “Tate Tanks” — the cavernous former gas tanks beneath Tate Modern’s Bankside gallery — have finally opened to much media ballyhoo. The conversion of these vast subterranean spaces says much about the transformation that has taken place in the making and reception of art in recent years, from the contemplative viewing of a painting or sculpture to the “event-driven,” performative practices that now preoccupy curators at galleries like Tate.

Already, specially commissioned film and multimedia “performances” have been staged in the new spaces, including recent work by Korean artist Sung Hwan Kim and Belgian artist Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, while recent Tate acquisitions such as the music and light installation Light Music (1975) by Lis Rhodes

and Suzanne Lacy’s The Crystal Quilt (1985-87) will soon also find a home there.

Finally, from the rarefied world of contemporary art to the down-to-earth but no less fascinating realm of provincial auctions, this month threw up one particularly intriguing object that would surely have presented a challenge to the most experienced appraiser. Coming under the hammer at Hartley’s saleroom in the Yorkshire town of Ilkley this month was a Victorian pine witness box. The anonymous maker of this handsome object had seen fit to decorate it with an egg and dart moulded cornice, a bible rest and a brass rail. It had been removed from the Magistrates Court in the Yorkshire town of Bingley, but originally did service in Bradford Crown Court. Who knows how many malefactors had hung their heads in shame within its confined space over the past century?

Bidders may have been pondering those historical considerations as they wrestled it beyond the estimate of £150-250 to a hammer price of £460 ($710). One can almost hear the court clerk’s words echoing down the panelled corridors: “Call Mr. Mitt Romney!”

 

It is late June and London’s Masterpiece fair, now in its third year, has just opened on the south grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea in an enormous marquee, the facade of which has been mocked up as a Georgian terrace.

The fair — which rose like a phoenix in 2009 from the ashes of the Grosvenor House Fine Art and Antiques Fair — is London’s attempt to match, or perhaps even outdo, The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht, which takes place annually in March. Both fairs have a similar ambience with the dealers’ stands located on wide avenues that open into spacious piazzas where visitors can take the weight off their Jimmy Choos over a glass of champagne. There is also a wealth of swanky restaurants, bistros and bars.

Like most fine art fairs today, Masterpiece’s target audience is the fast-expanding international community of High Net Worth and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) seeking a safe harbor for their wealth. Fine art and other alternative assets are increasingly considered the most attractive way to diversify an investment portfolio. So, cheek by jowl with Old Master paintings and longcase clocks at Masterpiece there were stands selling Rolls Royce motorcars,

top-of-the-range Riva powerboats,

and gold-plated sculptures by Damien Hirst.

We cannot illustrate the Damien Hirst écorché figure that presides over the fair’s central champagne bar as we were prohibited from taking a photograph by two Gagosian Gallery shop assistants standing sentry nearby. They would not even disclose the asking price, such is the air of exclusivity surrounding Hirst and all his works. Discretion over prices extends to all classes of object at the Masterpiece fair. We asked the price of an exuberantly decorated rococo bureau by François Linke on the stand of London dealer Adrian Alan.

“The price is on application,” said the gallery assistant. “I’m sorry; I cannot even give you a ballpark figure.”

Despite the fair’s opulence and the air of breezy optimism issuing from the ancillary staff, the mood among the trade was somewhat downbeat when Auction Central News visited on the first day. The dealers we spoke to had sold nothing at the opening vernissage the previous evening but remained optimistic that business would improve as the fair progressed.

“Buying art is not exactly a priority in these recessionary times,” said London sculpture dealer Robert Bowman, who added, “We did well here in previous years and I’m sure we will again.” Bowman was showing major bronzes by Rodin alongside recent works by the internationally renowned American-born British sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld.

Two or three dealers lamented the fair’s late closing on the final day (July 4). “Why do we have to be open until 9 p.m. on Wednesday?” said one who asked to remain anonymous. “It smacks of desperation.”

Gaining entry to the Masterpiece fair can be like entering the Vatican’s inner sanctum, so security-conscious have the organizers of these luxury events become. Such caution is perhaps understandable as the start of the London 2012 Olympics gets ever closer.

One firm whose business is devoted to alleviating such anxieties in the fine art and culture sector is London-based Ecclesiastical Insurance who celebrate their 125-year jubilee this year. Clare Pardy, Ecclesiastical’s fine art and heritage underwriting manager, writes to tell us that their fine art portfolio has grown significantly as the art market has continued to bounce back from recession. Their specialist fine art team has expanded accordingly

since they started in the spring of 2008. Rather appropriately in this, their jubilee year, Ecclesiastical has teamed up with the popular magazine The Oldie

to recognise the achievements of British artists over the age of 60. This seems only fair given that most awards these days are focused on younger artists. A short list of 10 works will be chosen by the judging panel and the winner of the £5,000 Oldie British Artists Award (OBA) will be announced on Oct. 16 at the English Speaking Union in London. Who knows, an OBA may yet become as prestigious as an OBE.

While the ritzier end of the international art and antiques market continues to thrive, spare a thought for the more modestly priced end of the industry. The smaller provincial auctions, dealers and fairs may not attract quite so many column inches, but there is encouraging activity here too. Last week it was announced that well-known UK fairs entrepreneur Sue Ede has acquired the popular Bath Decorative Antiques Fair

from Bath-based dealer Robin Coleman, who has organized it for the past 23 years. Patrick Macintosh, a Sherborne-based furniture dealer and stalwart exhibitor at the Bath fair over many years, said, “As a founder exhibitor at Bath I feel very much part of the setup and will be really sad to see Robin step down. I have exhibited at Sueʼs fairs in the past; she is a consummate professional but with a kind heart and our interests at the fore — just like Robin — and I know she will preserve the style and spirit of the fair going forward.”

And so from Bath to Benin. This week saw the opening of Cargoland — an exhibition at London’s October Gallery of new work by Benin-born contemporary artist Romuald Hazoumé. In recent years, Hazoumé has garnered a broad international reputation as one of the most exciting young contemporary artists to emerge from West Africa. While he is wide-ranging in his concerns, one of his signature approaches is to take discarded petrol cans, kettles and other objects and apply various found materials to turn them into masks.

His work thus pays homage on the one hand to the long tradition of so-called African tribal art that exerted a powerful impact on European modern artists such as Picasso and his contemporaries, while at the same time commenting on the socio-economic realities of life in contemporary West Africa.

Some of the recent works comprise petrol cans suspended from battered old motor scooters to form a kind of mechanical tree in an elegant reference to the dangerous practice of running black market petrol across the borders of neighboring Benin and Nigeria.

The show continues at October Gallery, 24 Old Gloucester St., London until Aug. 11.

Finally, last week saw the annual Cork Street Open when the galleries in historic Cork Street — one of London’s most illustrious centers of modern and contemporary art — opened their doors for the evening. Auction Central News dropped in to the Beaux Arts gallery

one of the street’s longest-established galleries run by Reg and Patricia Singh. They were staging a mixed show by some of their most established artists alongside new work by more emerging talents.

As the wine flowed, visitors mingled among the Lynn Chadwicks and the Elisabeth Frink sculptures, but it was the West Country sculptor Simon Allen who was attracting most attention. Allen’s beautifully crafted wall sculptures carved from wood and covered in silver and gold leaf have been winning admirers internationally in recent years. The Beaux Arts show included a new work by Allen entitled Pollen.

By closing time it was works by Elisabeth Frink and Simon Allen that had found buyers. The show continues until Sept. 1.

 

LONDON – You may need to be of a certain age for the name Supertramp to ring any bells. Even if the name strikes a chord, it is surely only die-hard Supertramp fans who will be aware that Dave Winthrop (born 1948), a member of that hugely successful rock band in the early 1970s, is also an accomplished artist. Like many rock musicians of that era, Winthrop combined his musical career with forays into art school. Although his art training at Colchester School of Art never proved quite as thrilling as gigging with the likes of Supertramp and the now largely forgotten Chicken Shack, Winthrop never stopped drawing. The notebooks and sketchpads he kept while touring with the likes of Dr. John, The Eurythmics and other bands, reveal him as a highly skilled draftsman.

Today, when not blowing a saxophone, he continues to make art from his studio in Ramsgate, Kent.

Winthrop’s meticulously dense, highly idiosyncratic drawings and designs will form one of the more unusual attractions of the 12th edition of Master Drawings London—the capital-wide event in which specialist drawings dealers from around the world show a broad range of works from the Renaissance to the present at galleries throughout Mayfair and St. James. Winthrop’s work will be on display at Day & Faber’s gallery at 14 Old Bond St. for the duration of the drawings festival from June 27 to July 5.

Meanwhile, rather more typical of the sort of thing for which Master Drawings London has become known over the years, is British modernist painter William Orpen’s vigorous Self Portrait seated on a cliff top,

on display with Jean-Luc Baroni in Mason’s Yard, St. James, and Salvator Rosa’s A Standing Halberdier in pen and brown ink and brown wash, which will be offered by Stephen Ongpin, also based in Mason’s Yard.

Master Drawings London is nothing if not varied.

It is a truism frequently repeated these days that the art market is now largely “event-driven,” which is another way of saying that fairs have become the motor powering a good deal of international art commerce. London in June veritably explodes with art and antiques fairs and this year the more important ones will be hoping to benefit from the “Olympic bounce” of the London 2012 Games.

If a group of dynamic London dealers had not moved swiftly to fill the vacuum, London would still be mourning the demise of the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair of fond memory, which folded in 2009 after 75 glorious years. In the event, the Masterpiece fair, now in its third year, not only filled the gap left by the Grosvenor, but delivered an even more spectacular international display that confirms the rude health of the luxury, blue-chip end of the art market. This year’s Masterpiece provides further evidence, if any were needed, of the ever-widening gap between ultrahigh net worth individuals, those with investable assets of more than $30 million, and everyone else.

As if to drive that point home, this year’s fair, located in a purpose-built pavilion in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea from June 28 to July 4, includes a print of one of the most expensive paintings ever sold — Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

This extremely rare lithograph from 1895 will be on the stand of Oslo-based dealer Kaare Berntsen whose entire Masterpiece display will be devoted to Munch’s work. Original Scream prints of this kind have only been offered at auction twice in the last 20 to 30 years. The Munch Museum in Oslo inform us that this impression is one of only 26 such prints and one of very few which includes both the artist’s signature and an inscribed poem. Those features have contributed to its price tag of “approximately £2 million” ($3.1 million).

It is futile to even attempt to summarize the extraordinary panoply of treasures on display at Masterpiece, but typical of the quality on offer is the only known example of an oversize Cary “terraqueous” globe

that maps the 1839 expedition in the Great Northwestern Passage—complete with rediscovered documents, maps and photographs. This will be offered by Butchoff Antiques, while Whitfield Fine Art will show a newly discovered and fully authenticated Caravaggio, shown for the first time in the UK since its recent rediscovery.

Painted around 1600 for Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani, this masterful portrait of Saint Augustine uses the same model who featured as one of the apostles in the National Gallery’s Supper at Emmaus, one of many works that Clovis Whitfield brilliantly analyses in his recently published scholarly book on the artist, Caravaggio’s Eye (Holberton, London 2011).

The increasingly global, multicultural nature of the art market has become one of its most notable features in recent years. London may have slipped from its once seemingly unassailable position as one of the top two international art market hubs (alongside New York) both of which have now been overtaken by China. It remains, however, a vibrant and incredibly multicultural center of art commerce as the next month will demonstrate. This week, Russia’s wealthy will once again be in force to contest the sales of Russian art offered by Christie’s, Sotheby’s and MacDougall’s and doubtless many will remain to peruse the plethora of fairs that follow soon after. Meanwhile, Islamic and Middle Eastern art are also powering their way up the league tables as Qatar and other Gulf states stake their claim to cultural supremacy.

That crosscultural theme is revealed in a new work commissioned specifically for another important London art fair happening this month — Art Antiques London — taking place for the third year in a specially built pavilion opposite the Royal Albert Hall in Hyde Park from June 13-20. New York gallerist Jane Kahan has commissioned the Islamic artist Ahmed Moustafa to create a new Aubusson tapestry titled Frolicking Horses, which will be priced “in the mid-six figures” at the fair.

A coming together of an American-based dealer, an Egyptian artist, and a French tapestry company at a London fair — it’s hard to imagine a more eloquent expression of the hybrid nature of today’s contemporary art market.

Another interesting trans-Atlantic connection appears in an auction scheduled to take place in Edinburgh, Scotland in September. The ambitious Edinburgh forms of auctioneers, Lyon & Turnbull, have won the prestigious instructions to disperse the contents of the Greenwich Village, N.Y., home of Donald and Eleanor Taffner.

Mr. and Mrs. Taffner were independent television producers responsible for bringing successful television shows to the American public, including Three’s Company, Too Close for Comfort and The Benny Hill Show. They were also responsible for classic British productions such as My Family and As Time Goes By.

However, it is the Taffners’ love of Caledonian art and culture, and most specifically the work of the Glasgow School of artists and designers, led by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, that makes the forthcoming auction so fascinating. Being such passionate collectors of Glasgow art and design and of the paintings of the Scottish Colourists, the Taffner’s New York home turned out to brimful of works that will be keenly contested in September.

It is some time since such an important collection of Glaswegian Art Nouveau came to market. Highlights include a watercolor landscape executed in France by Charles Rennie Mackintosh titled Boultenère,

which reveals the Glaswegian designer as one of the finest watercolorists of his generation. It is estimated at £80,000-120,000 ($127,000-$190,000), while a self-portrait by the highly collectible Sir John Lavery, showing himself in the company of the young Shirley Temple, is expected to fetch around £30,000-50,000 ($47,000-$79,500).

 

 

LONDON – The extent to which the UK’s more go-ahead provincial auction houses are making inroads into the business of London auctioneers is becoming ever more apparent. As the London rooms continue to raise the minimum values beneath which they will not accept goods for sale, preferring instead to concentrate on the ‘blue-chip’ end of the market, so ambitious country firms are stepping in to grasp profitable business. Nor are these consignments “crumbs from the master’s table,” but are often high-value objects whose owners have identified the multiple benefits of choosing country firms over their London equivalents.

The list of big-thinking country salerooms is now familiar and includes, amongst others, East Sussex auction house Gorringes, West Country firms Duke’s of Dorchester and Woolley and Walis in Salisbury and, further north, Tennants of Leyburn, North Yorkshire.

Over the past five years, Duke’s have made significant inroads into markets that would previously have been dominated by the London rooms. Their expertise in Asian material has proved particularly profitable and this coming month sees them building on that reputation. Their 10 May sale of Asian art includes yet further consignments of Qing Dynasty porcelain and white jade, early bronzes and other examples of the kind of works sought by newly-wealthy Chinese mainland collectors. Like most of the Asian consignments that have come under Duke’s hammer in the last year or two, the works in the May sale are mainly from private collections and are thus appealingly fresh to market. One consignment in the May sale is provenanced to the Laird of Invercauld in the distant highlands of North East Scotland.

Highlights of Duke’s sale include an interesting Chinese blue and white vase of pierced globular shape, its form derived from an Islamic metal prototype; a Chinese white jade censer carved with buddhistic lion masks;

and a Qing Dynasty lemon-yellow glazed bowl bearing a Yongzheng mark.

All these lots are “Estimate on Request’ — invariably an indication of high hopes. Like many auctions of Asian material these days, the more important lots at the sale are not available for online bidding. Clearly the ever more global art market continues to present a few problems for auctioneers in terms of potential non-payment.

Another benefit country auction houses enjoy over their London counterparts is their ability to market objects of regional significance to local people. West Yorkshire auctioneers Hartleys of Ilkley witnessed unexpected levels of interest in an oil painting by Kenneth ‘Ken’ Jackson (1920-2006) at their April sale. This was a realistically rendered scene depicting the filming on location of the classic 1970 movie The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter.

The painting showed the main street in the Yorkshire village of Haworth, with a group of local people watching the actors awaiting direction. The figure at the centre of the composition bears a strong resemblance to the actor Lionel Jeffries, who made his directorial debut on The Railway Children. Estimated at £3,000-5,000 ($4,880-$8,100), the painting drew a winning bid of £10,500 ($17,100). Hartleys tell us that some 850 limited edition prints were produced from Jackson’s painting, most of which are in local collections. Hardly surprising, then, that the original was so fiercely contested.

Meanwhile, a few miles up the road in Leyburn, North Yorkshire auctioneers Tennants have just seen a lively response to a slightly earlier but no less fascinating example of English social history. Their sale this weekend included a white cotton nightshirt and long-johns made for Frederick Kempster (1889-1918), who was popularly known as ‘The Blackburn Giant’ on account of his extraordinary height.

Kempster is reported to have stood around 8ft tall, which led to him forging a career as a circus showman around the turn of the century. It is not clear who offered the winning bid of £550 ($895), but one hopes it was a Lancashire museum. A real Lancastrian giant’s pyjamas would be sure to draw gasps of delight from local school children.

So much for tall tales from the auction circuit. Staying momentarily in the countryside, May sees the opening of “the definitive” exhibition of eighteenth-century English Windsor chairs at West Wycombe Park, a National Trust property in Buckinghamshire.

Curated by Windsor chair specialists Michael Harding-Hill and Robert Parrott of the Regional Furniture Society, the exhibition, which runs from 6 to 31 May, draws on private and public collections to assemble 35 extraordinary examples of one of the oldest and best loved English chair types.

The area around High Wycombe has been synonymous with the making of Windsor chairs since the late eighteenth century, although the term itself dates from 1720 when the style was also referred to as the ‘Forest’ chair on account of its use outdoors. Lord Percival of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire reported in 1724 that so numerous were the paths and walks on his estate that “My wife was carry’d in a Windsor chair like those at Versailles.” Nowadays she’d probably use a golf buggy.

Turning from furniture to fine art, Bonhams offer us a reminder this month of the continuing globalisation of the art market as they assemble another sale of African contemporary art. ‘Africa Now’ on 23 May includes one or two fine examples of the work of respected Ghanaian contemporary artist El Anatsui whose work is now encountered everywhere from the British Museum to the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht. The sale includes New World Map — one of El Anatsui’s extraordinary wall hangings constructed from discarded aluminium bottle caps and copper wire.

It is expected to realise £500,000-800,000 ($813,000-$1.3m).

High expectations also accompany Nigerian painter Benedict Enwonwu’s (1917-1994) oil on canvas Dance Ensemble II of 1976,

which is forecast to make between £60,000-80,000 ($97,500-$130,100). One of a number of examples of Enwonwu’s work in the sale, it will be interesting to see if this builds on the high prices attained at Bonhams last outing of African art, which set a new auction record for Enwonwu’s work.

Returning to British contemporary art, May sees the opening of a new exhibition of work by Bridget Riley,

best known for her role in the 1960s movement broadly known as Op Art. Riley’s new two-part exhibition, which is to be staged at Hazlitt Holland and Hibbert in Bury Street, Mayfair and simultaneously at Karsten Schubert’s gallery in Lower John Street, Soho (from 23 May to 13 July) marks a full fifty years since her first commercial exhibition at Gallery One in Soho in 1962. The exhibitions are devoted to Riley’s hugely popular eye-popping canvases in black and white which helped establish her international reputation.

Finally, one other event likely to prove popular this coming month, particularly given the erratic spring weather in the British Isles in recent weeks, is the exhibition entitled ‘Where the Land Meets the Sea’ at Jerram Gallery, Sherborne, Dorset from 1 to 16 May. The show features new paintings by Caitlin Palmer and Gerry Dudgeon,

the former revealing a keen eye for the muted blues and greys of coastal scenery under threatening clouds and blustery winds, the latter seeing the Dorset landscape through a warmer palette of decorative patterning. If only the British weather would adopt a warmer palette.

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In 1641 English diarist John Evelyn visited Holland and reported that Dutch peasants “were so rich that they were looking for investments and often spent 2,000-3,000 florins for pictures.” Wandering around the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht last week it was clear that the Dutch peasants to whom Evelyn referred have long since been replaced by a rather more cosmopolitan clientèle with an even larger disposable income.

This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Fair and the organisers had pulled out all the stops to create a reception foyer with the glitzy ambience of a five-star Dubai hotel.

Ultimately, however, these events are judged not on the interior decor but on the volume of sales. By the end of the week many dealers were reporting buoyant business and a renewed confidence among buyers. What made this year’s fair markedly different to past years was the greater number of Asian visitors, reflecting the fact that China has finally overtaken America as the world’s largest market for art and antiques.

London Eye spoke to Catherine Weiss, a director of London’s Weiss gallery, dealers in Old Master portraits, who had sold four important English portraits from a private collection during the opening hour of the fair. The most notable of these was a full-length portrait of Henry VIII known as The Ditchley Henry VIII, for which they had been asking £2.5 million ($3.9 million). The gallery also sold three late 16th century portraits by Robert Peake, including a portrait of Catherine Carey, Countess of Nottingham, circa 1597, which went to an international buyer at around £2 million ($3.1 million) and two related pendant portraits at £350,000 ($560,000) and £650,000 ($1.03 million).

“Clients were in great form this year,” said Weiss. “They want to buy.” She also noted the new influx of Asian interest, proving that TEFAF’s promotion of the fair within China had paid off in visitor numbers if not yet in sales. “The Chinese visitors didn’t buy from us,” said Weiss, “but they were here in some numbers and expressed great enthusiasm for the English ancestral pictures, which bodes well for the future.”

Although Asian buyers were more conspicuous on many stands at this year’s fair, they remain slow to catch on to the rich appeal of Chinese export porcelain, the market for which, for now at least, remains predominantly North American. London-based Michael and Ewa Cohen are the world’s leading specialists in Chinese export porcelain and did an encouraging amount of business at this year’s fair. Their stand was once again brimful of superb examples of 18th century wares decoratively displayed thanks to the theatrical flair of their research colleague William Motley. When we visited their stand they spoke of steady sales throughout the week and reported serious interest in a rare and important Famille Rose bowl decorated with an early New York landscape subject

for which they were asking around £280,000 ($450,000).

The TEFAF Fair grew from a core group of Old Master dealers who, 25 years ago, hatched a plan to turn Maastricht into the premier annual destination for museum-quality pictures. Despite having since expanded to accommodate sections devoted to modern and contemporary art and modern design, the Maastricht fair still derives much of its strength and appeal from the Old Master paintings market. It was thus not surprising to hear that Johnny van Haeften, one of the original founders of the fair and the doyen of the London Old Master trade, had sold pictures “in double figures” during the first three days of the fair. Meanwhile, silver dealers Koopman Rare Art generated welcome media coverage thanks to the sale of an important early 18th century silver inkstand by Paul de Lamerie for $5 million.

The provenance connecting it to the first British Prime Minister Robert Walpole lent it added luster.

If bullish TEFAF sales were not sufficient to confirm a continuing market recovery across the board, the upbeat message from exhibitors at the 20th anniversary installment of the British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) Fair in London this month helped dispel any lingering doubts.

Visitors were flocking around the stand of decorative arts dealer Sylvia Powell for whom the international fairs circuit now provides the backbone of her business (Powell and her son Mark do the BADA, LAPADA and Olympia fairs in London and the Chicago and Palm Beach fairs in the United States). Powell had sold a number of ceramic works by Picasso and Jean Cocteau when we visited, and a blue glass Cyclops sculpture by Salvador Dali at £9,000 ($14,390).

Kent furniture dealer Lennox Cato,

who is also a star of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, had thrown a prefair party for invited clients at his Edenbridge gallery a few days before the BADA event. “Business was incredible,” he said, adding, “business is better now than it has been for years.”

Asked why the market was so buoyant at retail level given the recession, he told us his clients were looking for “tangible assets as a long-term store of value.” Those assets included a set of eight Hepplewhite period dining chairs, which Cato sold to a Belgian collector, and a pair of late 18th century Chinese hardwood tables, which went to a New York buyer.

The Gold Award for “Object of the BADA Fair” was won by furniture dealer Frank Partridge, who was showing a rare English cabinet, circa 1680, decorated with pieta dura panels.

Although it remained unsold at £285,000 ($455,630), Partridge expressed confidence that a buyer would soon be found. Asked whether he might have had a better chance of selling it at TEFAF, Partridge shrugged and shook his head.

Away from the fairs circuit, one of the most interesting pieces of news this month was the announcement that Mallett, the once illustrious firm of London furniture dealers, is back in profit, albeit only marginally. The firm, which recently moved to new premises in London’s fashionable Mayfair district, returned a profit before tax of £0.5 million ($800,000), compared to a loss of £1.4 million in 2010. The profit, however, includes the proceeds of the sale of the lease on the firm’s former premises in New Bond Street, London. Market analysts will be watching with interest to see whether Mallett’s decision to withhold share dividends for the foreseeable future will deliver a much-needed upturn in business.

Looking ahead to the spring season, forthcoming attractions include the first ever Cotswold Art and Antiques Dealers Association (CADA) Fair to be held from 20-22 April at the historic Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, home to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Noble country house locations are becoming a notable aspect of the UK fairs scene as cash-strapped owners of ancestral piles seek new revenue streams. Antiques fairs provide a picturesque setting for exhibitors to show off their wares and the house’s aristocratic owners raise much-needed cash. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate object to take to the Blenheim fair than the lady’s silver-gilt traveling dressing table service provenanced to the family of Sir Winston Churchill, to be offered by Hamptons Antiques.

It was commissioned from London silversmiths Garrard & Co. in 1844 for Jane, Duchess of Marlborough and is decorated with the Spencer-Churchill family coat of arms.

Finally, the next few weeks will see country-wide celebrations of HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Not surprisingly, this is already providing an opportunity to brand exhibitions with a vaguely patriotic theme, even if the exhibition content is only tenuously related to Her Majesty. The career of the late and much-admired British painter and printmaker John Piper (1903-1992) spanned a good deal of Elizabeth’s reign. A new exhibition of Piper’s rarely seen work for British churches goes on view at Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire from April 21 to June 10.

The exhibition will reveal Piper’s extraordinary versatility across a wide range of media from paintings, stained glass and tapestries to drawings and designs for ecclesiastical vestments.

The works have been drawn from many public and private collections and will include a series of paintings of bomb-damaged churches executed by Piper while working as an official war artist.

Piper’s love of British churches will gain a new and somewhat poignant resonance in the light of the increasing incidences of thefts from churches over the past few years, driven mainly by the rise of scrap metal prices. Piper’s work will recall happier times when Britain’s ancient ecclesiastical heritage was treated with the love and respect it deserves.

 

 

It is by no means unusual for Asian works of art to emerge from the relative anonymity of provincial auction catalogs to create a stir with record-breaking prices. Unfortunately, some recent headline-grabbing results have subsequently become the source of extreme embarrassment for the auctioneers who accepted the bids but who have still not been paid. This sorry state of affairs is even being acknowledged in the high temples of economic analysis. The recently published Deloitte/Art Tactic Art & Finance Report on the state of the global art market quoted figures from the Chinese Association for Auctioneers, which suggested that “40 percent of the U.S.$1 million-plus works remain unpaid after six months.” More worryingly, it goes on to warn that “there is a high probability that many of these works will never be paid for.”

Those words will cause already cautious provincial auctioneers in the UK to look with even greater scrutiny on the credit-worthiness of potential bidders at future sales of Asian art. Bloomberg recently reported that West London auctioneer Peter Bainbridge has still not been paid the £51.6 million bid by a Chinese buyer for a Qing vase at his sale in December 2010. He is reported to have made trips to China to try and resolve the matter, but to no avail.

Happily, no such problems surrounded one of the more interesting Asian-flavored items that turned up at Duke’s saleroom in Dorchester a couple of weeks ago. This was an 18th century mantel clock in a case decorated with a lacquered bronze figure of a Chinese scholar and a small boy. It was certainly in the Chinese taste, or perhaps goût Chinois would be a more accurate way to describe it since the movement was French, signed on the enamel dial — Gudin — almost certainly indicating Paul Gudin (active 1729-1755), which is considered one of the most illustrious clockmakers of the reign of Louis XV.

Gudin’s clock movements were frequently incorporated into elaborate cases by renowned craftsmen such as André-Charles Boulle and others. Examples are included in the royal collection at Windsor Castle, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Although a successful blend of the rococo and the then prevailing taste for chinoiserie, this particular clock was not in the best of health, being in generally poor condition and with a replaced movement. These factors clearly influenced the cautious estimate of £500-£1,000 and yet such was its potential that it quickly brought £54,000 ($85,572).

The Gudin clock was not the only interesting French object in the sale. An exquisite Napoleonic prisoner-of-war painted bone model of a guillotine had been consigned from a Dorset private collection

and reaffirmed what has long been a truism of the art market — that objects of great quality and rarity can be relied upon to generate keen interest, even in times of recession. It seems hard to believe that this gruesome form of capital punishment remained the official means of dispatching miscreants in France as late as 1989, although the last time it was used was in 1977. On this occasion the social history background can only have helped intensify the competition for this delicate model, which saw the hammer fall at £4,000 ($6,340).

India and Indonesia, like China, are emerging markets whose thriving economies are hatching hundreds of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) every year. Many of these newly wealthy individuals nurture a desire to collect examples of their country’s ancient cultural heritage. Whether this factor helped fuel demand for a 13th century Indonesian carved andesite figure of Ganesha that came under the hammer at Duke’s sale

is unclear, but certainly it triggered some determined bidding. The monumental elephantine deity went on to attract a winning bid of £8,000 ($12,675).

London is currently abuzz with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation as preparations intensify for this summer’s Olympic Games. The anticipation is understandable as the event will usher in a capital-wide festival of cultural and sporting activities. The trepidation comes from a lingering doubt, frequently expressed by Londoners, as to whether the creaking transport network can accommodate such an influx of tourists.

Meanwhile, the spring art and antiques fairs are proceeding as usual, many of which are hoping to benefit from visitors arriving before the Olympic crush begins. The Chelsea Antiques Fair, which takes place March 21-25 at the Chelsea Town Hall, has been in operation since the 1950s and now claims to be “the world’s longest running antiques fair.” Quite how one might establish those credentials with any certainty is a moot point, but there is no doubting the fair’s popularity with local collectors and visitors alike. The 35 exhibitors at this year’s event are playing on the idea of a contemporary Grand Tour, hopping to attract intrepid intercontinental travelers with a nose for quality and rarity.

Typical of the kind of thing to be seen at this year’s fair are a Continental Art Nouveau vase

to be offered by London dealers Shapiro & Co.; a Liverpool creamware jug

priced at £1,575 ($2,500) on the stand of Staffordshire-based pottery specialist Roger de Ville; a 19th century gilt bronze group of Apollo and Daphne

priced at £750 ($1,190) with Oxfordshire dealers Antediluvian, and a rare 19th century gilt bronze figure of Napoleon astride his favorite horse Vizir,

which is for sale with Palladium Fine Art of Kent priced at £28,000 ($44,385).

If Chelsea is the longest running fair, the coming weeks see the opening of two of Europe’s most prestigious art and antiques fairs — the British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) Fair, held in a purpose-built pavilion in Duke of York Square in London’s fashionable Chelsea district, March 21-27, and the European Fine Art Fair, the annual event organised by the European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) in the Dutch town of Maastricht March 16-26. The London BADA event is arguably the most conservative of the Spring fairs, showcasing the stock of 103 BADA members specialising in all the usual categories of furniture, ceramics, silver, jewelery and the decorative arts. The event will nevertheless offer an indication of the extent to which the market is bearing up against the inclement economic climate. London Eye will be present to test the temperature.

The TEFAF fair in Maastricht, meanwhile, is another rare opportunity to see many important works of art ultimately destined to take up permanent residence in the world’s great museum collections. The range could not be broader, with everything from a BMW car decorated by Alexander Calder

to masterpieces by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Henry Moore.

London Modern British dealer Offer Waterman will be showing an important small bronze Reclining Figure by Moore,

one of two maquettes made in 1945 for a memorial figure in Hornton stone at Dartington Hall in Devon. “I wanted the figure to have a quiet stillness and a sense of permanence,” Moore wrote. Those two qualities seem to have been successfully translated into the maquette to be shown at TEFAF where it will be priced at £450,000 ($713,450).

Another significant offering from the London trade is a newly discovered 16th century alabaster relief by the great German sculptor and woodcarver Tilman Riemenschneider,

which will be on the stand of sculpture specialist Daniel Katz Ltd. Titled The Annunciation, and dating from 1515–1520, the work was intended for private devotion and is thought to be unique.

Also showing at Maastricht will be London furniture dealers Mallett who this month moved from their old premises in New Bond Street to take up residence in the period elegance of Ely House in Dover Street in Mayfair.

The building is the former London palace of the Bishop of Ely and was built between 1772 and 1776. Whether this opulent new home will help Mallett’s business improve remains to be seen. Skate’s Art Market Research analysts recently reported that the firm has been “losing money consistently since 2008,” which led to Swedish investor Peter Gyllenhammar taking a 23 percent stake in 2011.

Finally, if British Prime Minister David Cameron were in need of something to sweeten his public image, what could be better than a miniature version of his official London residence, 10 Downing Street, made entirely out of sugar cubes?

This is the work of British sculptor Brendan Jamison whose sculptures in sugar have been attracting huge interest in recent months. His model of the prime minister’s home is included in an exhibition of the best in British craft and design currently on display at 10, Downing Street.

It matters little whether you prefer the original French term or the English version, either way Droit de Suite, or the Artists’ Re-Sale Rights levy, will become more than just a mouthful to the UK art trade in 2012.

In January 2006, Britain was brought into line with the majority of other European Union member states when UK art dealers were forced to pay a levy on the resale of works of art by living artists. This was intended to “harmonize” tax laws among EU member states. Instead it struck a discordant note among those lobbying to protect London’s status as an important center of the international art trade.

In 2012 the levy will be extended to benefit artists’ heirs for up to 70 years after an artist’s death. Many dealers see this as likely to deliver yet another wounding blow to the secondary market in the UK. With China’s art market accelerating rapidly, the development is seen as singularly unwelcome.

Quite what impact the levy extension will have on annual events such as the London Art Fair remains to be seen. This year’s instalment of the fair took place at the Business Design Centre in Islington last week. Auction Central News visited on the final day to take the pulse of the market.

Asked about the likely impact of the extended levy, one prominent London dealer told us, “No question but that this will have an effect. On January 1st, all the modern dealers had to put their prices up by 4 percent, and this, in a tough buyer’s market, is not a very bright idea. Collectors don’t understand it, so don’t want to pay it. Rich artists get richer, poor artists get little or nothing. It also has a negative effect all round, so perhaps no coincidence that secondary market sales at the London Art Fair did not appear to be strong.”

It was clear from talking to other exhibitors that even without further bureaucratic impediments, the recession is biting. The organisers of the London Art Fair claim that the 25,000 people who visited this year represents the highest attendance figures in the fair’s 24 years of operation. However, that didn’t seem to translate into sales.

Gordon Samuel, a director of London dealers Osborne Samuel Ltd., who specialize in the top end of the Modern British market, said the fair had certainly been busy, with visitor numbers steady throughout the week, but that business had been slow. Nevertheless he was positive. “It’s always a worthwhile fair for us because we do business with other members of trade,” he said, “but with the public feeling the pinch one can’t expect as much activity from private buyers as we’ve had before.”

One sector of the market that seemed to be bearing up was that of affordable contemporary prints. Dealers such as Tag Fine Arts and Eyestorm, both of which offer low- or mid-priced limited editions, as well as original works in the category now generically termed Urban Art, seemed to have had a reasonably encouraging week. “We’ve seen a lot of sales across the board,” said Angie Davey of Eyestorm, citing particular interest in prints and paintings by Danish artist Henrik Simonsen.

Hannah Shilland of Tag Fine Arts echoed that positive summary of the week’s business. “We’ve sold quite a bit and seen a lot of interest from new customers,” she said.

Over at the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in Battersea Park a couple of days later, mixed messages were again to be heard from the assembled trade.

Most dealers acknowledged the fair seemed to be well-attended but admitted that business was markedly slower than on previous occasions. Some sales were happening, however. Auction Central News witnessed a good deal of interaction between stand-holders and private buyers and saw two or three transactions being closed during the hour we were at the fair.

Oxfordshire dealer James Holiday showed us a large circular mirror enclosed in an impressive carved walnut heraldic frame, which had found a buyer at £2,600 ($4,100). “I had my best year last year,” he said, although he acknowledged that most of his business is with other members of the trade. “Some private buyers still have money and want to spend it,” he added. “Unusual items of real quality always sell well, although it’s getting more difficult to find really good things.”

If quality and luxury are the criteria that dealers most need to seek out, it will be interesting to see what kind of reception awaits the Luxury Antiques Weekend scheduled to take place Feb. 24-26 at Tortworth Court in Gloucestershire. The Cotswolds is one of the wealthiest regions of the country and so this fair, set in the Tortworth Court Four Pillars Hotel — a stylish country house nestled in 30 acres of private landscaped grounds — seems to be ticking all the boxes required to weather the economic downturn.

Twenty-two dealers from across the country will assemble over the three days, showing a diverse selection of decorative antiques and works of art. Recent market intelligence indicates that fairs of this kind are becoming the principle commercial focus for the trade. Wealthy private individuals increasingly view up-market fairs as an opportunity to view a broad range of objects under one roof without the inconvenience of trekking from shop to shop in towns and villages. Typical of the kind of decorative and traditional objects that will be on offer at the Tortworth fair is a set of three Russian enamel beakers priced at £950 ($1,495) with Shapiro & Co.,

and a French Empire ormolu mantel clock surmounted by a bronze classical figure, on the stand of Richard Price Antique Clocks.

And so to one or two fine art events of interest taking place in and outside London in the coming weeks. One show likely to prove a magnet for admirers of the late Lucian Freud is an exhibition of fascinating photographs of Freud at work and at rest in his studio taken by photographer David Dawson, which will be on display at London dealers Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert’s gallery at 38 Bury St. from Jan. 30 until March 2.

Lucian Freud: Studio Life features photographs taken by Dawson over a 12-year period and throughout the final years of Freud’s life (the artist died in July 2011, aged 88). As well as now familiar images of Freud with his friend and fellow painter David Hockney

(whose own Royal Academy show opens this week), the exhibition includes tender images of the artist with friends and sitters such as Kate Moss (although on this occasion she is not sitting but rather lying in bed, cuddling the great man himself).

Freud was known as an obsessively private person and so the exhibition throws a rare and revealing light on the more intimate aspects of his life and work. It coincides with an exhibition of Freud’s portraits on view at the National Portrait Gallery from Feb. 9 until May 27.

Finally, a colorful, bright and breezy exhibition to dispel the wintry gloom that descends at this time of year. “Drawn to the Landscape” at the Jerram Gallery, Half Moon Street, Sherborne, Dorset from Feb. 18 to March 3 features new work by three British women artists — Carry Ackroyd, Emma Dunbar and Fiona Millais. All three artists share an optimistic view of English country life, making this an appropriate joint showing of their work. Carry Ackroyd’s Kites wheeling over a patchwork landscape;

Emma Dunbar’s vivid still life, Allotment with beans;

and Fiona Millais’s Bullfinches pecking at berries on a tabletop

together offer a clear indication of the exhibition’s overarching rural theme. Millais happens to be the great-granddaughter of the pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais, a small biographical detail that will doubtless help generate interest in a lively group show that seems well-timed to help usher in some brighter spring weather.

 

 

With the Eurozone teetering on the brink of oblivion, it may not be long before we’re all shredding our credit cards. At the Frieze contemporary art fair in London this week, British artist Michael Landy was happy to do it for you in return for a free drawing. Landy’s huge Rube Goldberg-style card-mashing contraption on the stand of London dealer Thomas Dane was just one of a multitude of wacky ideas that now passes for contemporary art at the annual fair in Regent’s Park.

If the atmosphere at last year’s fair signalled a sense of relief that the art market was, however miraculously, weathering the global downturn, this year’s fair seemed altogether more uncertain. Since its foundation nine years ago, Frieze has become notable for showing art that is way out on the ragged edge of experimentation. However, Landy’s mad machine notwithstanding, the work on display this year seemed relatively safe and cautious, with many of the bigger dealers eschewing the challenging material and opting instead for safe art by familiar brand-name artists.

Most of the significant sales at Frieze take place in the first 24 hours and yet the fair’s most expensive item — a €75 million ($103 million) super-yacht — was still seeking a buyer when we visited on Thursday. This is a collaboration between young German multimedia artist Christian Jankowski and the Italian luxury yacht manufacturers CRN. If you buy the boat as a boat, it will cost you €65 million ($89,4 million); if you pay an extra €10 million, Jankowski will bless your purchase with a certificate that magically turns the yacht into art. If your budget won’t stretch that far, there is also a Riva power-boat on sale at €500,000 ($688,000) if bought as a boat, or €620,000 ($853,000) if anointed by Jankowski as a work of art.

Luca Boldini, CRN’s marketing director, was on hand to reassure Auction Central News that the boat was no art world hoax. “This is very much in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp and the idea of the Readymade,” he told us. “Christian is very serious about this work and I am very confident that we will sell it. If we do, it will send a great wave around the world that will confirm the value of the project.”

Frieze Fair is now the London art world’s most important annual event, its influence spreading across the city as buyers fly in from around the world to see work brought by 173 exhibitors from 33 countries. Frieze may hog the limelight, but the buzz it generates also helps other events elsewhere in the capital in October.

The Pavilion of Art and Design in Berkeley Square, now in its fifth year, offers an opportunity to see works by the classic American modernists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Motherwell, or by British masters like Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson that would look positively ancient compared with what is on show at Frieze.

By early November, the Frieze frenzy will have subsided, and the more considered atmosphere of “Asian Art in London” will commence, with many of the world’s most important Asian art dealers and collectors flying in for the 10-day event from Nov. 3-12. Typical of the more promising shows in the Asian art calendar is an exhibition entitled “Ivory — Material of Desire” to be held at the Dover Street premises of London textile and works of art dealer Francesca Galloway.

Ivory is now widely recognised as one of the most controversial materials in the history of the decorative arts. In the late 19th and early 20th century, vast quantities were harvested from the Congo under the brutal regime of King Leopold II of the Belgians. Art nouveau ivory objects from that era deftly disguise the ghastly source of the raw material. Ivory has, of course, been a precious commodity since antiquity and Francesca Galloway’s exhibition will include a carefully selected range of objects dating back to the 16th century, the material here predominantly originating from Asian elephants.

Among the most beautiful items on display is a 16th- or 17th-century Ceylonese ivory openwork jewel casket fitted with a multitude of interior drawers veneered in tortoiseshell and ivory with silver mounts and handles and enclosed by a pair of doors.

This is the sort of thing that would not have been out of place in a Spanish or Portuguese princely collection and it will be a rare treat to see it at close quarters.

Also included is an 18th-century howdah from Murchidabad decorated with Mughal openwork ivory over mica, a technique designed to make the seat shimmer in the sunlight, thereby adding to the sense of luxury.

Francesca Galloway’s exhibition runs Nov. 3 to Dec. 9.

Although it may seem somewhat rarefied and specialist when compared with the often crude impact of much of the contemporary art on display at Frieze, Asian Art London offers some astonishing visual delights for those prepared to keep their eyes and minds open. One of the most extraordinary objects going on display in November is an 11-headed Tibetan bronze Avalokitesvara figure inset with precious stones and dating from around 1400.

This 4-foot 3 1/4-inch masterpiece will be the prize of London dealers Rossi and Rossi’s “Asian Art in London” exhibition at their gallery at 16 Clifford St. from Nov. 3 to 12. The exhibition focuses on a private European collection of ritual objects formed over two decades from the late 1970s and includes several works exhibited at the Guimet Museum in Paris and published in their landmark catalog, Rituels Tibétains: ‘Visions Secrètes du V Dalai Lama.’

Also timed to coincide with the “Asian Art in London” event is the launch of an important new publication devoted to Chinese export porcelain — The RA Collection of Chinese Ceramics: A Collector’s Vision by Maria Antónia Pinto de Matos, director of the National Tile Museum in Lisbon.

The three-volume text celebrates the collection of Brazilian entrepreneur Renato de Albuquerque and is published by London-based Chinese export porcelain dealer Jorge Welsh of Kensington Church Street.

Welsh and his business partner Luísa Vinhaís will be launching the book on Saturday, Nov. 5, at their gallery at 116 Kensington Church St. when the author will give a lecture at 5 p.m. and will sign copies of the book.

A selection of works from the Albuquerque Collection will be on display at the gallery, including an extraordinary Qing dynasty Qianlong period crab tureen and stand

and two Qing dynasty Kangxi period vases decorated in underglaze blue and copper red.

The launch will coincide with an exhibition at the gallery entitled “A Celebration of Chinese Export Porcelain,” which will provide yet another reason for the world’s most passionate collectors and dealers in Asian art to make the trip to London in November.