Enfilade

Press release from the Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair:

Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Olympia
Olympia Exhibition Centre, London, 12-18 November 2012

Armorial Lion, with his paw raised upon a cartouche and his tail curled across his back, ca. 1740 (Exhibitor: Hansord)

The Winter Fine Art & Antiques Fair at Olympia, now in its 22nd year, is considered one of the most important annual art and antiques events and is the only fair of its calibre between October and February. Highlights include artworks by Chagall, Miró and Braque, furniture by Trotter, glass by Lalique and even Bond-style accessories alongside silver, glass, jewellery, textiles and clocks for the collector and Christmas shopper. Attracting over 24,000 visitors, the Fair, which opens at 4pm on Monday, November 12, 2012 features around 130 exhibitors in an elegant setting.

Well positioned for buyers furnishing a home or shopping before Christmas, it has become an event in the annual social calendar. The buzzy preview night attracts over 3,000 keen buyers with queues down the road before opening and plenty of red dots and empty glasses at the end of the night. Attendees include Jemima Khan, Jools Holland, Jasper Conran, Bryan Ferry, Nicky Haslam, Sir Paul Smith, Sir David Tang and Sir Peter Blake. Furniture is an important element of the Winter Fair with a number of the UK’s top furniture dealers exhibiting. Wakelin and Linfield brings an early 18th-century English walnut bureau and Hansord will be showing a myriad of interesting objects such as a late 19th-century armchair constructed from timber from Nelsons ship The Foudroyant as well as a rare pair of early 19th century Dutch colonial burgermeisters chair with carved decoration and a fine George III period mahogany partners desk, with original brass swan neck handles and good veneers to the drawer fronts dating from 1775.

Fine Art makes up a good proportion of the fair with prices ranging from the hundreds to the hundreds of thousands. Print specialists Dinan & Chighine has two important sets of prints by Marc Chagall and Joan Miró while Court Gallery brings an oil on card laid on canvas, ‘l’aquarium au verre’, 1944 by Georges Braque. Held in the Vassar College Collection from 1956 until 2012, the work was the first of the artist’s fish bowl series and the motif was repeated many times by him in the 1940s and 50s.

Scottish-based, Victorian picture dealer, Campbell Wilson has an oil on canvas portrait of Isadora Duncan by Paul Swan (1883-1972) signed and dated. The most famous dancer of her time, Isadora is known as the ‘mother of modern dance’. It is for sale for £15,000. Nicholas Bagshawe’s Philip Alexius De Laszlo (1869-1937) portrait of Major Henry Frederick Elliott Lewin was painted during the First World War, and is a fine example of one of 38 portraits that the artist painted in 1915 of officers going to the front, as their families feared they might not return. Ironically after painting these patriotic and poignant portraits, Laszlo was imprisoned for two years in 1917 (at the hands of the very establishment he had been portraying so handsomely) and suffered a nervous breakdown.

For anyone inspired by the latest James Bond film, which will be released in late October, Hampton Antiques have several items that could leave you shaken and stirred. A very rare Art Deco ‘Smokers Companion, in the form of a stylised aeroplane, manufactured in Germany by J.A. Henckels in the late 1920s.This wonderfully rare smokers companion has a cigar box in the fuselage, a pair of removable cigarette cases in the wings, a set of four ashtrays housed in the cockpit, behind a match safe with removable cover and striker. A very simple but very stylish touch is provided by the propeller which is sprung and serves as a cigar cutter, the clippings drop into undercarriage. It has its original plated finish, with gilded interior to cigar receptacle, cigarette cases and ashtrays will be offered at £6,500. A chromium plated, 1960 Rolls-Royce decanter in the shape of a radiator with ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ Silver Lady will be offered, while a chrome Bugatti Spirit Decanter with a super red enameled Bugatti badge and black grill, all incased around a single glass decanter has an asking price of £775.

Japanese specialist Laura Bordignon Antiques will be bringing a selection of Japanese ivories, bronzes and works of art from the Meiji Period. These include a Japanese silvered bronze okimono of an eagle, signed Seiya saku, dating from the Meiji period. The BADA (British Antique Dealers Association) are also holding a lecture titled, The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery: An Artist in India and China. At a time when the West’s eyes are looking towards China and India this lecture, given by Patrick Conner, reminds us of how 200 years ago one wayward genius, George Chinnery, interpreted through his brush the turbulent times of imperial expansion and the Opium Wars in the region.

The fair will have a strong section devoted to clocks and barometers, which in this current economic times can be a shrewd investment as they are seen as machines, so therefore exempt from Capital Gains Tax. Richard Price & Associates will be offering a Louis XVI white marble, bronze and ormolu mantel clock, dating from circa 1780, while Alan Walker Barometers will be displaying an impressive and very unusual aneroid barometer by Negretti & Zambra of London, dating from 1915. The barometer is in a mahogany case, made from timber removed from HMS Empress – a seaplane carrier during World War 1, having been refitted in 1914 from a cross-channel steamer.

Staffordshire creamware model of a seated squirrel eating a nut, ca. 1775 (Exhibitor: John Howard)

Amongst the smaller objects such as silver, ceramics and glass; Paul Bennett will be exhibiting two exceptional pieces dating
from the 17th century. A continental silver-mounted carved coconut cup, dating from circa 1680 and inscribed by maker BA measures 10½inches tall, while a William and Mary flagon, made in 1694 in London by Frances Garthorne, weighs 51ounces and measures 12¾ inches high. Oxfordshire-based John Howard, who specialises in Early English ceramics, will be bringing a Staffordshire creamware model of a seated squirrel eating a nut. Measuring 8 inches high, the delightful squirrel dates from circa 1775 and will have an asking price in the region of £4,750. Meissen specialist, Alexandra Alfandary brings a Meissen vase, dating from circa 1880, and measuring 36cm high. It is a very unusual shape with ‘pâte-sur-pâte’ decoration to front showing a Centaur with a female on horseback.

For visitors searching for a one-of-a-kind Christmas present, many of the exhibitors will have interesting suggestions. Geoffrey Breeze Antique Canes has a cane inspired by Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Dating from 1870, the cane comprises a palm wood shaft with silver collar with a carved handle depicting an ape holding a human skull. There is a button on the handle, which makes the ape turn his head and open his mouth.

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From the Fair’s website:

Patrick Conner — The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery: An English Artist in India and China
Olympia Exhibition Centre, London, 15 November 2012

At a time when the West’s eyes are looking towards China and India, this year’s BADA Lecture, given by Patrick Conner, reminds us of how 200 years ago one wayward genius, George Chinnery (1774-1852), interpreted through his brush the turbulent times of imperial expansion and the Opium Wars in the region.

Chinnery enjoyed a double career in the Far East. Leaving wife and children behind in Ireland he sailed in 1802 to India where he rose to become the principal artist of the Raj. He had a successful studio, an Indian mistress and a huge appetite for curry. Then, hounded by creditors he fled to the China coast. Unable to make the voyage home, he lived on for another 27 years in Canton and Macau. Here he sketched and portrayed all those around him – the captains, the opium traders, the Chinese and the Westerners. Chinnery left a vivid pictorial legacy of
the key players at a time of immense change.

A former Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton, Patrick Conner is a Director of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London, specialists in historical paintings related to the China Trade. A widely published author, his latest book is The Hongs of Canton. In his lecture Patrick will give a fascinating insight into the important historical period when Chinnery was active.

Lecture ticket price: £45 including lecture followed by a 2-course lunch with wine provided by Mosimann’s Winter Brasserie. To book for this event email Anne Green or call on +44 (0)20 7581 5259.