LONDON.- Visited by interior designers as well as collectors and creative home owners, the fair shows design classics such as Windsor Chairs as well as familiar Modern British artists Terry Frost and Mary Feddon mixed in with Art Deco cocktail cabinets and Renaissance rings.
Prices start at under £100 and finish well over £100,000 for rare, museum-quality pieces.
New exhibitors to
The 31st Winter Art & Antiques Fair Olympia (November 1-6) include Messum’s, Santos London, Annecy-based 20th century design dealers, Studio Marjan Ertefai, David Stanley and Karen Taylor Fine Art.
Santos London is selling a very rare Chinese export porcelain wall vase modelled as a carp decorated in iron red, c 1770, Qianlong reign, Qing dynasty. In the dealer’s 45 years of dealing in Chinese porcelain he has never seen anything like this before.
Long-standing exhibitor and Asian sculpture specialist, Laura Bordignon brings a Japanese bronze figure of the Samurai Yoshitsune standing holding a naginata (a pole weapon with a curved blade) He is the most famous samurai warrior in the history of Japan and this one is signed by the artist Miyao. It dates from the Meiji period 1868-1912.
Generally seen at fairs with buyers crowding eagerly into his cabinets of curiosities, Matthew Holder travels the world in search of early European works of art. He has a rare pair of amber handled marriage cutlery from northern Germany from the 17th century. It would have been given as a marriage gift to the couple whose images surmount both pieces of cutlery on their wedding day. Due to the rarity and allure of the material and the objects made from it, amber curiosities were a mainstay in Noble European art collections throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The dealer also brings a Renaissance gold ring with turquoises and a garnet. European, 16th century.
New exhibitor Studio Marjan Ertefai has a number of design classics from the 20th century. Their philosophy is ‘In a world of overproduction and overconsumption, we believe in bringing alive historical arts, traditional craftsmanship and design with a purpose’. Previously a fund manager, the owner and founder Marjan Ertefai travels to some of the world’s most remote places from the Siberian taiga to the jungles of Papua New Guinea in search of stock.
Of all her pieces at the fair she highlights the Chaise Rio by Oscar Niemeyer, because ‘he is undoubtedly one of the most (if not the most) celebrated architects of the modernist movement globally’. While she has several pieces by important designers of this time period, the Chaise Rio is really the most emblematic due to its carefully designed curves (which no other designer or architect has been able to achieve, in her opinion).
West end gallery, Messum’s is focusing its fair on the work of artist Sean Jefferson. Sean’s work resonates between 1960s psychedelic Op-Art and the fin de siècle era Art Nouveau style. There are similarities with his work and the popular Victorian artist Richard Dadd as he similarly employs minute detail in his paintings - but particularly in his depictions of fairy characters that populate his imagery. Jefferson says of his work, ‘I feel my work sits side by side with the fantastical strand of the Romantic Tradition, and the work of William Blake, Henry Fuseli and James Barry, whilst incorporating the innovations in the artform since the early 19th century’.
20th century art specialist since 1999, Freya Mitton brings Yellow Sun by abstract artist Sir Terry Frost RA (1915-2003). Frost decided to become a painter while a prison of war in WWII. He lived and painted predominantly in Cornwall and worked in Newlyn. ‘Yellow Sun’ is an acrylic and collage work. She is also showing an untitled painted metal sculpture by the artist dated 2003.
First time exhibitor at Olympia Karen Taylor Fine Art brings a Laura Knight R.A. (1877-1970) Portrait of a Lady, signed and dated l.r.: Laura Knight/Dec 1923, watercolour and black chalk. The sitter, Lillian, was married to Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, one of the most sought after society portraitists in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century and president of the Royal Academy in London from 1949-54.
David Stanley, auctioneer in antique woodworking tools, brings his own private collection to sell at the fair. The collection of 40 fine quality paintings accrued during the last 50 years including artists by James Barenger, Charles Louis Verbochoven, C.E. Wilson, A. Wordle, Peter Baumgartner and William Shayer.
A rare (and at over 2 kilos in weight, heavy) Georgian bucket-shaped wine cooler is for sale through silver dealer Mary Cooke Antiques. The Arms and Crest are those of Horner of Mells, County Somerset, impaling the Hippisley arms. The Horners of Mells acquired the Mells estates during the great redistribution of land caused by the dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. The nursery rhyme Little Jack Horner refers to the first of the Horners of Mells. The wine cooler was made by Robert and Samuel Hennell, London 1807.
Sussex-based furniture dealers Wakelin and Linfield bring an exceptionally small (82cm high)18th century burr walnut Anglo Dutch chest of drawers. It was made in England in around 1725. Also on their stand will be an early 19th century hoop-back Windsor armchair. Made of yew it is also English and made around 1800.
Morgan Strickland specialises in Art Nouveau glass, ceramics and jewellery. On sale at the Winter fair will be an Art Nouveau style silver and chalcedony pendant by celebrated designer George Jensen. Also on his stand will be an Arts & Crafts Tudric pewter and enamel 019 clock for Liberty & Co, possibly designed by Oliver Baker.
Glass dealer, Hickmet Fine Arts has an early 20th Century Austrian Titania 'blau mit grun’ Art Nouveau blue and green glass vase of trumpet form by Johann Loetz overlaid with an Art Nouveau silver geometric decoration. Loetz glass was the premier Bohemian art glass manufacturer during the Art Nouveau period from c 1890 to 1920. Founded in 1840 by Johann Loetz in what is now the Czech Republic. The company became known for its innovative techniques, organic forms, and bold use of colour.
Amongst the other exhibitors, there are a number of jewellery dealers at the fair including Wimpole Antiques, Sue Brown, Grasilver and Anthea AG Antiques. Anthea AG sells pieces by well known 20th century makers such as Cartier, Tiffany and Van Cleef and Arpels. The diamond and gold ‘Love Birds’ brooch from the 1960s is by Van Cleef and Arpels.
All buyers, at any level, are reassured by the ‘vetting’ process which sees a team of experts check every piece for sale before opening to ensure quality and authenticity.
