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NEWS All the latest 30 SECONDS with... NICOLAS MARTINEAU CHEFFINS’ NEW BUSINESS MANAGER Where did you start? 30 year ago as a porter at Christie’s before moving on to a wide degree of categories from Old Masters to Japanese ceramics to teddy bears. I also had a spell in the wine department before following my passion for British prints and then topographical pictures. Your best find? A previously unrecorded 1864 work by the German artist Josef Selleny (1824-1875) which I found lodged between the sofa and radiator of a Wiltshire house. Selleny was the artist on the scientific voyage of the Austrian frigate Novara which circumnavigated the world between 1857 and 1859, it sold for £157,250 – a record price for the artist at auction. East of Edenbridge A popular Kent antiques centre, the first to include BADA only dealers, is to close. After 13 years, the Edenbridge Galleries will close so its owners Lennox and Susan Cato can concentrate on their own business. Lennox Cato said: “Running an antiques centre has given us the opportunity to work with some great people, but we now feel the time is right to simplify our business.” A consolidation sale, which started in February, continues online at www.lennoxcato.com Heads up A porcelain head bought at a French flea market has been revealed as the work of French sculptor Louis François Roubiliac, working for London’s Chelsea porcelain factory. Described as “one of the most exciting discoveries in ceramics for many years”, the Head of a Laughing Child (c. 1746– 49) is set to join the V&A. Research proved it was almost certainly cast from an original clay model made by a friend of Nicholas Sprimont, founder of the Chelsea porcelain factory. Above Louis-François Roubiliac (1705-1762), Head of a Laughing Child, c.1746–49 © V&A LOCATION HUNTERS Salvage Hunters, the TV programme which sees the dealer Drew Pritchard scour the country for bargains, is on the look out for new hunting grounds for an upcoming series. The producers are especially keen on finding locations in Staffordshire, Somerset, Gloucester and Scotland. The show follows the Conwy decorative antiques dealer and his trusty sidekick Tee John as they travel around the UK and abroad to buy unusual objects with interesting histories. Previous locations have included museums, factories and even religious sites. If you have a location that may fit the bill call 0203 179 0092, or email salvagehunters@ curvemedia.com Left Her home was a collector’s paradise Below A Steiff cinnamon teddy bear c. 1908 is estimated at £3,000£4,000 Drew Pritchard (left) and Tee John Toy story The contents of the home of Joan Dunk – a stalwart of Portobello Road antiques market – are to be sold by Berkshire’s Special Auction Services. For decades, Joan had an outside pitch on the corner of Westbourne Grove and only recently moved to the indoor market. As well as selling antiques, she collected them with her husband who was a dedicated toy train collector. Together they packed their small London terrace, with the living room filled with clockwork toys, while display cabinets showcased lead toy figures, including Felix the Cat and other comic book characters. Her first serious collection began in 1965 with old teddy bears (two decades before they became collectable). As well as collecting bears, Joan had an extensive toy collection. In the sale, a Bing clockwork teddy bear with tinplate ball carries an estimate of £700-£1,000, while an 1860s Grodnerthal wooden doll is expected to fetch £1,000. 8 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
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In the dark A £5m conservation project at an 18th-century country house in Suffolk is allowing its treasures to be seen in a whole new light – the dark. When scaffolding shrouded the famous rotunda of Ickworth House near Bury St Edminds in darkness, it allowed curators to show their collections of porcelain, art and sculpture in a dramatic new fashion. Lighting designers teamed up with owners the National Trust, to use spotlights and floodlights in the entrance hall, stairway, first floor landing and roof, allowing visitors to see the property and its art in a new way. Ickworth was created in the 18th century by the 4th Earl of Bristol, known as the ‘Earl-Bishop’. It was later enhanced by his son and went on to showcase a collection of magnificent art and other treasures amassed during Grand Tours of Italy. Above Doccia fountain illuminated for Ickworth Uncovered ©National Trust, Jim Woolf Left Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s self-portrait © National Trust, Jim Woolf Top Evelyn McNicol checks the health of a Sherpa Above Jane Inglis Clark of Edinburgh (pictured holding ropes), a founding member of the Ladies’ Scottish Climbing Club, 1909. Below Isobel Wylie Hutchison began her journey in the 1920s. SCOTS OF THE ANTARCTIC Plans for an exhibition celebrating pioneering Scottish women explorers have been unveiled. The National Library of Scotland will celebrate early women mountaineers including the Ladies’ Scottish Climbing Club, founded in 1908 by Arctic traveller Isobel Wylie Hutchison who left her West Lothian home in the 1920s. Wylie Hutchinson, who was the first Scotswoman to visit Greenland, also travelled across the ice-bound coast of Canada and northern Alaska using a dogsled. The exhibition, due to open on October 2, will also pay tribute to Evelyn McNicol, who was part of the first all-female expedition to the Himalayas in 1955. MILK MADE The £1m revamp of a derelict 18th-century model dairy into a holiday home has been captured by Channel 4. Cobham Dairy in Kent was designed in the 1790s by James Wyatt one of the most influential and sought-after architects of the day. In the 18th century, model dairies were created as feminine spaces for the supervision and making of cream, butter and cheese – a genteel pursuit for Georgian ladies to undertake. Now owned by the Landmark Trust, its renovation can be seen in a new hour-long documentary due to air this year. With a central double-height chamber surrounded by arcaded ‘cloisters,’ the dairy masqueraded as a diminutive Italianate chapel, a gothic eye-catcher nestled in the grounds of Darnley’s Cobham Hall. Above It is now a proud addition to the Trust’s stable of holiday homes Right Tilda Swinton © David Levene Below £3.5m is needed by March 31 to buy the cottage Cottage buy The actress Tilda Swinton is one of the campaigners hoping to raise £3.5m by the end of the month to buy the cottage and contents of the late filmmaker Derek Jarman. Jarman spent the last years of his life in Prospect cottage on the edge of the beach at Dungeness. More than 25 years after his death, the home continues to be a site of pilgrimage for people from all over the world who come to be inspired by its stark beauty and Jarman’s legacy. The cottage and its contents are now being sold following the death in 2018 of Keith Collins, Jarman’s close companion in his final years, to whom he bequeathed the cottage. ANTIQUE COLLECTING 9

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NEWS All the latest

30 SECONDS

with...

NICOLAS MARTINEAU CHEFFINS’ NEW BUSINESS MANAGER Where did you start? 30 year ago as a porter at Christie’s before moving on to a wide degree of categories from Old Masters to Japanese ceramics to teddy bears. I also had a spell in the wine department before following my passion for British prints and then topographical pictures. Your best find? A previously unrecorded 1864 work by the German artist Josef Selleny (1824-1875) which I found lodged between the sofa and radiator of a Wiltshire house. Selleny was the artist on the scientific voyage of the Austrian frigate Novara which circumnavigated the world between 1857 and 1859, it sold for £157,250 – a record price for the artist at auction.

East of Edenbridge A popular Kent antiques centre, the first to include BADA only dealers, is to close. After 13 years, the Edenbridge Galleries will close so its owners Lennox and Susan Cato can concentrate on their own business.

Lennox Cato said: “Running an antiques centre has given us the opportunity to work with some great people, but we now feel the time is right to simplify our business.”

A consolidation sale, which started in February, continues online at www.lennoxcato.com

Heads up A porcelain head bought at a French flea market has been revealed as the work of French sculptor Louis François Roubiliac, working for London’s Chelsea porcelain factory.

Described as “one of the most exciting discoveries in ceramics for many years”, the Head of a Laughing Child (c. 1746– 49) is set to join the V&A.

Research proved it was almost certainly cast from an original clay model made by a friend of Nicholas Sprimont, founder of the Chelsea porcelain factory.

Above Louis-François Roubiliac (1705-1762), Head of a Laughing Child, c.1746–49 © V&A

LOCATION HUNTERS Salvage Hunters, the TV programme which sees the dealer Drew Pritchard scour the country for bargains, is on the look out for new hunting grounds for an upcoming series.

The producers are especially keen on finding locations in Staffordshire, Somerset, Gloucester and Scotland.

The show follows the Conwy decorative antiques dealer and his trusty sidekick Tee John as they travel around the UK and abroad to buy unusual objects with interesting histories. Previous locations have included museums, factories and even religious sites.

If you have a location that may fit the bill call 0203 179 0092, or email salvagehunters@ curvemedia.com

Left Her home was a collector’s paradise

Below A Steiff cinnamon teddy bear c. 1908 is estimated at £3,000£4,000

Drew Pritchard (left) and Tee John

Toy story The contents of the home of Joan Dunk – a stalwart of Portobello Road antiques market – are to be sold by Berkshire’s Special Auction Services.

For decades, Joan had an outside pitch on the corner of Westbourne Grove and only recently moved to the indoor market. As well as selling antiques, she collected them with her husband who was a dedicated toy train collector.

Together they packed their small London terrace, with the living room filled with clockwork toys, while display cabinets showcased lead toy figures, including Felix the Cat and other comic book characters. Her first serious collection began in 1965 with old teddy bears (two decades before they became collectable). As well as collecting bears, Joan had an extensive toy collection. In the sale, a Bing clockwork teddy bear with tinplate ball carries an estimate of £700-£1,000, while an 1860s Grodnerthal wooden doll is expected to fetch £1,000.

8 ANTIQUE COLLECTING

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