AT the time of writing one can only hope, but, this Friday, the rescheduled Petworth Park Antiques and Fine Art Fair is due to open for a three-day run to Sunday, September 13, in the grounds of the great West Sussex house —although, before travelling, visitors are advised to check online at www.petworthparkfair. com for the latest updates.
As the organiser Ingrid Nilson says, there are some changes to the usual layout, with a one-way system, allowances for social distancing and a track-and-trace system. Face coverings will be mandatory in the marquee, and some queuing will be inevitable. However: ‘The catering has been brought outside in front of the marquee, so visitors can relax, if they wish, while awaiting their turn to enter the fair.’
There will be about 50 exhibitors, with the usual wide range of specialities. Among those who can be relied upon for the less usual is the King’s Road dealer Hatchwell Antiques. Here, there are two offerings from Denmark: at £14,000, one of the designer Poul Henningsen’s remarkable pianos—an upright with an elm and leather case by Andreas Christensen Flygler of Copenhagen dating from 1931—and, with a price of £22,000, a pair of historically interesting swivel guns—bronze falconet one-pounder cannons (Fig 1).
Following the British bombardment of Copenhagen and the destruction of much of the Danish fleet in 1807, the Gunboat War, or Kanonbådskrigen, continued until 1814 between Danish privateers and British shipping in the Baltic. As Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) romanticised it in The Supper at Elsinore, one of her neo-Rococo Seven Gothic Tales, ‘there were cannons singing once more in the Danish fairways’. Among the heroic Danish captains and their boats, Dinesen places her hero Morten De Coninck and his ‘Fortuna II of Elsinore with a crew of 12 and four swivel guns’.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
