IT was an even greater pleasure than I had expected to visit the Petworth Park antiques fair in mid September. There was doubt about its opening almost to the moment that it did, but circumstances—and the weather—were kind.
Business was done across the board, including a rare Regency four-fold screen (Fig 1) from William Cook, and it was moving to feel the real joy of exhibitors and visitors once again doing something that they loved, in the traditional way. For many of us, it may be some time before we experience that again.
When, eventually, our current stop-start way of living gives way to a more predictable existence, we are unlikely to go back fully to our old ways of doing things, when online was only one method among many. At the moment of writing, it’s possible to go to a physical exhibition, if not a traditional opening—but who knows if that will be the case next week or next month?
However, it has been evident from many of the shows, activities and initiatives that I have covered here over the past months that the best businesses are making sure that the internet really works for them. If they cannot do so, they will probably go under.
In the past, especially before art fairs came to prominence, the trade was made up of individuals who rarely co-operated with one another (except, whisper it, those who took part in bidding rings) and dealers and auctioneers observed professional, and often social, distancing. It’s not that long ago that dealers, even former colleagues, were never invited to boardroom lunches at Christie’s.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 14, 2020-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 14, 2020-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
