Week 113 - All Change

After nearly five years of quasi independence as a roving antique dealer and erstwhile fair organiser I found myself boarding an aeroplane heading for the San Francisco Fall Antique Show once again an employee of Mallett antiques. In fact, as I sat in my seat dreamily staring out of the window at the blank sky above the clouds I reflected that I was now the joint CEO of 7 companies! (Mallett Antiques, Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, Hatfields Restoration, Masterpiece Fair, The Auction Room and Bid for Wine). My days of getting up and sauntering around the park with my dog plotting the day ahead are set to become a memory. The task before me is immense but the immediate pleasure of returning to the foggy city of San Francisco is an unalloyed delight.

The annual Fall Antique Show takes place on one of the piers at Fort Mason, the building is a cream painted warehouse with painted cast iron beams and the bright Californian light streaming in from every door. Stepping outside you are confronted from almost every view with boats of all sizes from pleasure cruisers to massive yachts bobbing in the Pacific and the looming presence of the infamous prison island of Alcatraz. A lesser known fact about Alcatraz that I learnt on a visit some years ago is that it was and is still famous for being the birthplace of the Native American protest movement. On literally the first day of my new job I walked down to the end of the aisle to the Mallett booth greeted and congratulated by folk who seemed to know about my new role even before I did. The antique world bush telegraph is second to none! Hand shakes and bashfulness follow and in the midst of mind bending jet lag I head off to dinner with Justin who has been in charge of Mallett London for the last few months. The cab takes us somewhere I cannot follow and we breeze in to a buzzing restaurant and luckily find two seats at the bar. We drink Californian Cabernet Sauvignon with rare grilled beef cooked in front of us. The heat is tremendous and yet it all slips down happily and after sharing a few thoughts, dreams and worries about the future we head off for our funny Japanese hotel - the Nikko. Being used to the United States from the perspective of NY it is a culture shock to be in the same country but on the other coast where the outlook is to the far East and not as expected back to Europe.

The Mallett Booth (image writers own)

The fair kicks off with one of the most fabulous if not the most fabulous fair parties in the world. The piece de resistance here is twofold. The first joy are the lamb chops which come in small platefuls of three and therefore you need to go around the queues several times over in order to get an ample sufficiency. They are small, juicy, pink and moreishly toothsome. The second is the stands where they offer bites of caviar on a biscuit with sour cream accompanied by shots of ice cold vodka. One year - some time ago, there was a stand just beside the Mallett booth. The waiter was bald and appeared to be missing part of his head as he had a strange plate over half his cranium. That year he had a choice of three vodkas to accompany domestic and imported caviar. The party starts at 4 and ends at 10, that year I visited him every 15 minutes or so throughout the evening, we developed quite a bond; I was delighted to see him still around this year and we greeted with enthusiasm on my part and complete bafflement on his - he had no idea why I remembered him so fondly . That was the year I invented the phrase - what you don't mess up you can claim as a success. Late in the evening a couple came by and admired a pair of mirrors, after some time they asked me if they were still available. I just managed to get out the key word 'yes.' A few minutes later they asked me if they could buy them, again I got out 'yes'. What a great salesman I am. This year the team and myself were feeling very professional and over indulgence was eschewed.

A mountain of tasty shrimp ( image writers own)

Only too soon - after only 4 days - I was off to NY to visit the Mallett shop, meet the staff and visit the long established International show at the Armory. Pushing aside the massive heavy doors you do enter a familiar and almost repetitive world. It is such a legendary venue but overused for fairs and therefore it is a real test for organisers to insert a measure of novelty, originality and individuality. Many visitors muddle which fair they attending. Mallett were not showing but many other friends were and it took some time to go round explaining again and again my new life to the assembled wide eyed trade. New York was wonderfully sunny and bright and the avenues shone as we walked around. I was accompanied throughout by the effervescent new head of the NY Mallett office, Andrew Ogletree. He is a graduate from the English furniture department at Sothebys where he was for 9 years under the avuncular eye of Peter Laing who now resides at Doyles - keeping up with art world game of musical chairs is a challenge. He is tirelessly buoyant and keeps every one in stitches of laughter with his faultless accents and mimicry, whilst simultaneously garnering respect for his knowledge and passion for the art. We viewed at Christies the sale of items from the stores at the Met. That august institution has as leader of its Esda department ( European sculpture and decorative arts) Luke Syson who has walked and triumphed over a perilous tightrope bringing this sale under the hammer. Paying homage to the gifts whilst recognising the need to edit and refine the collection is no easy task. By the time you read this the sale will have been and gone but I anticipate success and hope that the gains will afford the museum an opportunity to acquire many more treasures.

And so I fly home to attend my swan song as a private dealer as I am exhibiting at the Olympia Winter Antiques Fair. It starts on Monday 2nd November and runs through to Sunday and I must rush home to do my labels and prepare my layout as we build the stand on Friday. I love this show for its friendly, convivial atmosphere, the anticipation of what eclectic treasures might be on display and what clients may find irresistible. But most of all I look forward to watching and learning from the selling machine that is Roger Lamb my neighbour.

Week 111 - Fun and Games at LAPADA 2015

The joy of doing a fair is the unexpected learning. This time at LAPADA in Berkeley Square I learnt that if someone crouches down they are not going to buy. You might almost say that the lower the crouch the less money they have to spend on art and antiques. I also learnt that people who flop confidently down on chairs can always afford to buy them - with the exception of the elderly and the overweight. Another lesson gathered is that when salesmen crouch they think there is a chance of a sale. My friend Tony Fell from Norfolk goes down on one knee, when you see him in action you know he is closing in for the kill. It is curious too the use and function of touching visitors. A little touch or a nudge during a conversation creates a sort of fairy bond that can convey trust and thereby engender business. I have done hundreds of fairs and yet these are lessons learnt from the fair just past. You would suppose that a fair is pure commerce but it is really a pop-up village with all the concomitant oddities and characters.

My corner of the LAPADA village, (Image writer's own)

At LAPADA I was tucked away in a corner and rashly took the option of having very bright lights so that visitors would be drawn towards me wherever they were. It sort of worked, but by the end of the first day my lights were so bright that I felt like donning sunglasses. On the third day of the 7 I dimmed and toned a few of the spotlights and though visitors and sales petered away - I felt better. My corner was also adorned by my latest acquisition - a drinks fridge. Helen Linfield ( Wakelin and Linfield ) always has one and at the Summer Olympia I was very jealous of her perfectly chilled white wine in the early evening. At this fair I was ready. In my corner I also had the delightful irregular drone and rumble of an air-conditioning unit, rather like the noise of a kitchen extractor fan you only really notice it when it came on or went off. Unfortunately this happened all day and added a strange torture to being voluntarily trapped in the same few square metres for a week.

My corner was graced by Julian Simon and Jeroen Markies. The former is a 30 year old gallery run by the charming but miniature twins Michael and Julian. They were fabulous company chatting and full of enthusiastically recalled anecdotes. Though from South Africa originally and still retaining a slight accent they strongly favoured New Zealand white and we hosted in our fridge. As the days wore on Julian introduced me to the computer game Candy Crush - made legendary by a British MP being filmed playing it during a debate in the House of Commons! Julian is on level 280 and is clearly a great expert. Down the aisle Geoffrey Stead and Craig Carrington ( Gloucestershire ) were great advocates of Spider Solitaire. So, the battle of the computer games raged. In front of our stands stood Jeroen. He is a tall, handsome half Dutch dealer from outside London, he specialises in selling British Art Deco period furniture. He hardly ate and certainly did not drink or play games! He focussed and succeeded in selling great swathes of his stock. He occasionally looked worried as he sat on his stand riffling through the credit card receipts. When asked he replied that he was worried he would not have enough stock for his next fair - poor darling! The LAPADA fair is followed back to back by the super charming, dog friendly Battersea Decorative Fair and quite a number of the dealers pack up LAPADA and move straight into Battersea -a brutal endurance task.

From my stand I did manage to sell a few trivial items but the best deal was doing a few swaps. we all have to earn a living and therefore sales for money are the best, however making a sale only really facilitates the next purchase and therefore cutting out the cash element completely can be very entertaining. I did one swap at the end of the fair that greatly pleased my carrier as I swapped a huge bookcase for a small card table. He thought I had done very well.

The fair - like any of them - follows a formulaic trajectory; first there is the frenetic unpacking and setting up, then vetting, then opening day followed by long quieter days, then a flurry to finish and finally all that remains is more hurried packing and off you go. Ebb and flow, optimism to begin with followed by partial disappointment followed in turn by a rationalisation. Even though I did ( or didn't do ) this or that - it was all worth it. We always justify ourselves. Poor profits or poor sales are excused away because we are all hooked to the dealing equivalent of Candy Crush. We put ourselves out on show at significant cost and hope that the gamble will pay off, but we need it. We are addicts to the game, and mostly it is great fun.

The party is over, (image writer's own)

Week 110 - Work Wakens From Its Slumbers

With a lurch, a hop, and a shudder the Art World is slowly - like Frankensteins monster - jolting back to life. For me leading the way is an auction house called Roseberys, located in South London, they are among a group of salerooms that have picked up the baton dropped or passed by Christies and Sothebys (depending on how you perceive it ) for selling decorative items for a few hundred up to a few thousand pounds. They have a two day sale this week which will hopefully tease the summer hibernating dealers out of their burrows blinking, rubbing their eyes and stir them into action.

Next on the agenda is the LAPADA fair ( London and Provincial antique dealers association ) which takes place in Berkeley square. It is quite a scary place to visit as the interior is usually quite dark and you enter having put your life at risk - traversing at a zebra crossing which the taxis and foreign registered sports cars see more as target practice than a place where pedestrians attempt to cross safely. Rashly I have signed up to take a stand. With a hundred or so other optimists I will spread my wares out, hopeful that an eclectic buyer will be sufficiently amused by my eclectic stock to make an eclectic purchase. It is true to say that the organisers make a big effort to entice the public with a barrage of emails and with copious and varied offerings to the press. They have had a redesign and everyone seems enthusiastic. The show takes place in the same tent structure as PAD ( Pavilion of Art and Design ). That fair coincides with the Frieze fairs and thus acts as a decorative arts element to those Fine and Contemporary art events. But first we have the LAPADA fair, which focusses on traditional antique dealing with a slant towards the curious and the original in terms of objects.

But events for the buying public are just one aspect of the return to the world of work. The retreat from holiday also means that the summer exhibitions are coming to an end. I just manage to get to see the Eric Ravilious show at the Dulwich picture gallery. He had a tragically short life - born in 1903 he died in a plane crash in 1942. His style seems quintessentially English and he sums up in many ways a gentle perception of a very local form of Art Deco. As a child we had his signature alphabet mugs and plates - designed for Wedgwood. The Dulwich show has been a huge success with long queues and enthusiastic reviews. In addition his work has recently shown a marked increase in value, moving from the decorative level into very significant sums indeed, from making tens of thousands his major watercolours now fetch hundreds of thousands. I ran into the Travers family, back from holiday, they have a gallery called Piano Nobile and spread their dealing out from a basic platform of Modern British, they are full of energy and it is a delight to see a business that thrives across the generations.

The upholstery in train, come on hurry up. ( image writer's own )

Back to work also are the restorers. I am not really sure why but the cabinet makers, polishers, gilders and upholsterers that I know all seem to have the deepest tans and the happiest looks. At Titian studios I drop in with my black working cocker spaniel - Mosca. Wagner is there with his new puppy - Penny. He had recently suffered a dog bereavement and his new hound has not erased his sadness but has definitely alleviated it. Mosca and Penny ran round his workshop with Penny doing her best to chew off Mosca's ridiculous floppy Cavalier ears. We - in the meantime - tried to discuss the work he is doing on a Dutch Rococo mirror. It is going fine but it was very very hard to concentrate. At Robins, the upholsterers, they are finally finishing a set of colonial armchairs for a client and at Hatfields the finishing touches are being achieved on a side table for another restless owner. Throughout August one can fairly and honestly blame people for being "away" but now the gloves are off, everything has to get done.

As September gets underway and August becomes a memory the pleasure of being back is encapsulated by a purchase I made. In Ladbroke Grove up by the tube station there is a pub called the Kensington Park Hotel, or KPH for short. It is a bit of a dingy pub but is a bastion of Notting Hill Gate history and sadly under threat from developers. It has lovely features including a couple of historic Double Diamond beer signs ( by repute Prince Phillips favourite beer, it is said he has one every night ) and a fine upstairs events room. Wandering upstairs I noticed a nice Irish rosewood early 19th c side table with a wonderful Connemara marble top. Once back downstairs I asked to see the manager and suggested he might like to sell the table. We get chatting and he turns out to be Vince Power the legendary music impresario, founder of the Mean Fiddler, Subterranea and almost countless others, for me his greatest creation was the short-lived Hop Farm festival where - jammed to the railings at the front - I saw the barely sober Pete Doherty perform the most perfect set I have ever had the good fortune to be nearly squashed to death watching. The combined joy of an out of the way treasure with a slice of hero worship topped with a drink in an historic watering hole - what could be a better welcome back to work.

Week 109 - L'Antiquaire en Vacances

For the antique dealer the word 'holiday' is a tricky one, most people look forward to their summer respite from the daily slings and arrows of the 9 -5 drudgery. They seek sunny climes where with shade, beach, grilled food, copious quantities of their favourite tipple and a semi-embarassing smattering of a foreign language they can forget the grind and recharge their batteries. But for the antique dealer they have rest forced upon them. If TS Eliot could write that April is the cruellest month we could write that August is. Everyone is away! There are no auctions, the clients are all off enjoying themselves and most of our fellow clansmen have bitten the bullet and given up for a month. So we have to be like sheep and act as a herd and give up too.

I have spent a good few days pulling rubbish out of cupboards and sweeping out long neglected corners. I am in France and I have chopped down trees, dragged rubbish out of the drought dry canals, and even sawn a sofa in half! I have cooked complex dishes from obscure, hard found ingredients and have driven hundreds of miles to stock up on Cremant de Bourgogne but nothing quite fills the gap left by the inability to buy and sell. So imagine my joy when leaving the Friday food market in Chatillon - where I had just completed my weekly acquisition of sheep's yogurt, dried duck breast and a selection of fresh shellfish - and I run into Alain de Schutter. He has a mill in Autricourt from where he trades in a motley collection of architectural salvage and what would best be described as - this and that. He is fair haired with an open boyish face which makes him hard to age. He is delighted to see us and insists - not hard to be persuaded - that we visit. The next day we drive up to his artfully ramshackle mill, his girlfriend is decoratively picking flowers and he is hauling down an oak desk from one of his mountainous furniture stacks. An Alladins cave of almost complete pieces of furniture, panelling and shards of marble proliferate in the barn and around it. His house itself is a triumph of imagination and ingenuity with each room created out of nothing with slices of interesting fragments holding the fabric of it all together. Alongside and in counterpoint there are rooms which are simply not there, complete gaps with no walls, no floor and no ceiling - just the elements. Today the sun is shining and so the prospect is delightful and even magical but in winter it must be gruesome and freezing. We are charmed and enthralled like children in a sweet shop and I buy a tole and wood chandelier and a tole lantern, more for fun than commerce.

The perfect trap in Autricourt - photo writers own

The next day sadly we are heading home but not before we visit Andrew Allfree in Normandy where rather charmingly he lives like Christopher Robin in the 100 acre wood. (Les Cent Acres) He is a bit like Christopher Robin himself - bizarrely he too is fair haired and boyish; both like Alain and like like Christopher Robin. There is a photograph in his hall way of his mother seated in a garden and he stands over her angelically blonde. Perhaps with Andrew there is a whiff of Peter Pan too. He is full of creativity and a sense of a decorative adventure ahead. He has a Chateau that he and his partner bought nearly 30 years ago as a ruin and have lovingly, academically and imaginatively restored. He offers too a barn cram full of treasures as well as a home full of art and delightfully playful touches. We dine in one of a myriad of high ceiling vast rooms, painted a bold colour, off massive plates with massive cutlery we eat slices of a massive salmon, the whole event seems straight out of Alice in Wonderland, even our glasses are boldly scaled - being cloudy rummers from the 19th century and lavishly filled with black red wine - intense and spicy. We discuss the season ahead and he is brimful of plans and ideas for the forthcoming months. Astonishingly I don't buy anything from him even though there are plenty of temptations. The next day over lunch we complete our visit by indulging in summer oysters by the beach and drinking fiercely cold Muscadet.

I am sure that both Andrew and Alain enjoy a good holiday like anything, but like me they are comforted and reassured by the visit to and from the trade. The process of thinking about the potential of and target for a piece is like a tonic, we escape this enforced period of lull and we brace ourselves for the full scale return. Then we can ache for a holiday and complain about relentless work again - what a relief that will be.

Week 108 - The Fear and Loathing of VAT

Sometimes in a world dominated by finances one has to remember that we are in this Art World for the sake of the stuff not what the stuff is worth. There are many ways to earn a living and this is one of the oddest, so we must have loved things before we loved money.

My VAT is due and I have to gather up all my invoices both incoming and outgoing, and every receipt I get; bundle them all together and present them in a coherent manner. Suffice to say - obviously, for anyone who knows me - that task is not undertaken by 'yours truly'. My beloved bookkeeper Alex who is part nanny part bully has put all this data into a "spreadsheet" on "excel". There is no point in me trying to make light of this or tease him about how dull it is. It is vitally important that it is done correctly and I would be well and truly sunk without his kind offices. So for the whole of Monday we toiled through reams of paper; with me filling in where my annotations had been either insufficient or non-existent. Every meal with clients has to be annotated by who was there; every purchase however trivial has to be allocated to its correct home. By teatime I was rocking in my chair and holding my head in my hands. But it was done.

The Joy of Paperwork. ( image writer's own )

I sat back and looked around the room. Here in my house every shelf is filled, every wall is covered and most of the floor is a labyrinth to navigate. I look at my things and my spirit rises. Of course I do appreciate that everything around me is something that I have not sold and therefore it is a sort of Albatross or just simply a form of money that you cannot spend, but these are all objects bought with enthusiasm and interest and they give me pleasure to hold and consider. My room - my Ali Baba's Cave of curiosity is my antidote to VAT. But unfortunately there is also Corporation tax, rent, restoration charges, storage, photography and carriage and many more encumbrances to a happy life in the art world. Further antidotes are required.

A part of the antidote, ( image writer's own )

The first half of the cure came with a visit to the restaurant Wright Bros in Bermondsey. I often debate what makes for a good restaurant and my most frequently reached conclusion is that it is the service more than the food. The other night dining at Soho house my guest's food did not arrive and we were left pondering whether to guzzle or wait. The dish came after much chasing and then two waiters came and apologized. They did so just as we were settling in to interesting conversations. Their urge to beg forgiveness, well meaning and kind, though it was, disrupted our meal. It is really what they call a '1st world problem' with irony and a good slice of sarcasm but my enjoyment was diluted. Wright Bros is a small oyster bar that is cramped and hot but somehow within this unpromising interior I have now enjoyed a number of delicious and beautifully cosseted meals. My antidote included oysters big and beefy from Carlingford Lough, a fresh almost crunchy bite from Jersey Royals and the most exquisitely delicate bite - sweet and gentle from Lindisfarne. The ability of a place to make you feel special is quite a triumph, especially in this tight environment. My VAT etc issues drifted back into their subsidiary but forceful place.

Whilst treats help to obscure the harsh realities of business the real answer is business itself. I had an adventure the next day when I drove out of town to a series of storage units. A passionate collector for more than 40 years has been in touch. He is selling two houses and their contents are in these units and he wants to dispose of about half. A long day passes immersed in bronzes, clocks, porcelain and fine furniture both Continental and English. Tables are turned upside down, marbles are felt for imperfections, mirror bevels are admired - a day full of careful examination and appreciation, close to and from a distance. Driving home examining the catalogue of treasures in my mind I could not help but feel elated by the 'things' I had seen and handled. It does not matter if there is no big or small financial quid pro quo; the joy was to be deep deep down into the things.

Week 107 - Nearly at an End?

In London the sun is shining, the public walk in a daze and semi-naked young and old parade their interesting bodies around town. This is the summer; it is usually a brief interlude between heavy and depressing cold, black clouds and frequent rainy days. These few sweltering days have brought us to the brink of the end of the season. The summer fairs have come and gone, the decorative art and old master auction sales now beckon, and then it will all be over until September.

Before the art world drifts off to its various holidays around the world it is worth taking a moment to reflect and ponder. London still holds the arts centre stage for the months of June and most of July. It is true that in the world of contemporary art London play very much second fiddle to Basel and Venice, but for anything made more than 20 years ago London struts its stuff. The strawberries and cream tea season now begins with the small fair hosted by Brian and Anna Haughton by the Albert Hall. 'art antiques london' The title says it all; it is all plain and simple in lower case. This fair was spawned from the former Ceramics fair and still has loyal supporters. It opened on the 11th June, then as that closed on the 18th up came the 'Olympia International Fine art and Antiques Fair', where I set my stall up. Olympia closed on Sunday the 28th June by which time Masterpiece had been open for 5 days and had until Wednesday 31st to run. So you can see that for almost the whole of June there is an art fair to go to. Almost predictably, they were not all overrun with visitors and sales. The Haughton fair survives as a relic of the Ceramics fair and that seems to offer it a future but one suspects that it will be a diminishing cycle. Olympia has been creatively re-positioned in a new hall and with revived energy by its dynamic director Mary Clare, but it is still struggling to find its new purpose. The buying public did not come in sufficient numbers after the opening to deliver sufficient business for many at the fair. But crucially there was some business and the future does hold the potential for revival.

A flash of silver from Amir Mohteshemi at Masterpiece ( image writer's own)

The Masterpiece fair today is the only one that seems to have glamour. The bars and restaurants are full all day and each year more and more people come to visit. There are the much-feted 'loyal supporters' for both the other two but in my view each suffers from being born out of something else from another time of the trade. Masterpiece was conceived as a fair for our times. Despite the good visitor numbers at Masterpiece the trade is nonetheless hard for everyone and whilst a few might trumpet success it is not born out a solid sense of steady trade. The sales that are made at any of the fairs are lucky strikes.

Now we have a week ahead of us where we can observe the latest turn of the wheel for Mallett, bought by Dreweatt in November last year they are now selling 'without reserve' nearly 400 lots, clearing the shop and refocusing the business. Christies and Sothebys have their 'treasures' sales, dedicated to marketing the finest pieces from the world of decorative arts for the year. In addition the Old Master picture sales come under the hammer. This used to be their high point for the year too, but today they have all been shunted into the dog days of July. A stark reality has bitten home - in a world where a 'dec arts' sale which includes items from departments that no longer have specialist sales like silver, arms and armour, textiles, glass, even sculpture - a sale total above £10 million is a huge result. In comparison to the contemporary and modern sales, where this could be no more than the commission on one lot, this is almost chicken feed. This means that these sales take place when the so-called super rich have already gone on holiday.

Writers stand at Olympia - sans Visitors

We need to think where the trade is going and we need to plan what to do ourselves? The best thing seems to be to take action. For example 50 or so art dealers have got together to give London Art Week a big push. This event has been around for a few years but this year they have been corralled into having consistent opening hours and everyone is mounting a special exhibition. To overlap with the auctions makes sense and it will be interesting if the public take note and visit. I look in particular at the sculpture dealers Dino and Raphael Tomasso. They used to be the young guns in town, smart, brave and frantically busy. Dino's eagle eyes are busy darting around looking for every opportunity; Raph', with his extraordinary sixth sense for an under-catalogued or under-appreciated object, is equally always rushing around. Today they are highly respected members of the trade having beavered away for many a decade. Crucially they don't act like elder statesmen. Its true a few grey hairs have emerged and they are actually still young. This is the point - they are relentless in looking at ways to re-offer and re-present their wares. The sale rooms, the dealers, the fairs all need to keep looking for ways to make their offering appealing, desirable, and though it might seem trite to say it 'fun'. Masterpiece achieves all of this but it is not a forum for everyone - it is very expensive to exhibit at, for a start. Everyone in this incredibly exciting business needs to realise that enthusiasm needs to be passed on. Being busy, not resting on ever fading laurels is essential, every dealer needs a platform from which to perform that will entice and entrance the visitor. In this age of the internet there is no shortage of access to goods so the crux has to be to offer a fresh way of viewing and buying.

Week 106 - Buzz Buzz Buzz Go the Art Fairs

Buzz buzz buzz. 

The fairs are in full swing in London, The Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair opens on the 18th June and Masterpiece opens a few days later on the 24th. Like industrious worker bees everyone is madly working away. Each dealer has a few precious clients akin to the Queen Bees all the drones strive for. Or so I imagine the clients. The metaphor continues as the old regular clients/queen bees have to be attended to with care and love but every season a new client/queen takes off and some of the workers leave while some stay loyally with the old queen. 

A swarm of Bees in Sussex - a metaphor for the trade ( image writer's own )

We drones - the dealers - gather our belongings together hoping to please both our existing clients and tempt new ones. To achieve this we exhibit at these fairs. 

But it is the lead up to the show that excites almost as much as the fair itself. This year I am exhibiting at Olympia. As a dealer I am too junior to exhibit on the grand stage of Masterpiece, even though I founded it. My offerings are quite humble - though, of course, fabulous. I have taken a large stand and everything, over 200 lots, has to be made ready. 

To our clients we may act as drones but we are the queens to our restorers and helpers. At Hatfields restoration in South London they crack the whip on upholsterers, electricians, metalworkers, cabinetmakers, polishers, framers and glass workers. All work feverishly to get things ready. Decisions are made hourly about a particular finish or button or repair. The hive is throbbing. What is so intoxicating about this phase is how much everyone cares beyond the requirement of mere work. The man who specializes in wiring antique light fixings sits hunched over a chandelier, he is big man - keen on rugby - or so says his t-shirt. His large sausagey fingers are fighting to wire on the last glass drops. Jerry also a large man whose hands never lose a polychromy of polish and wood stain sweats over an Art Deco chest to engender the right richness of tone. Phil who looks like a young Edward VII with a full beard, works hard to get the perfect match for a piece of missing veneer. These are but a few of those who really want to do the best they can.

Mirrors waiting in turn patiently, ( image writer's own )

But that is not all, I have three artists with whom I am working who are spraying, nailing, bending and wiring. Here I am uncertain who is the queen and who is the drone. But for Ben who is an immaculate fair haired ultra technician who is fashioning from wire a lion's head for me at Olympia or Marcus the bespectacled Caractacus Potts of art electrics who from NY is twisting copper into flowers or Simon who is adjusting from his Somerset studio, sweeping his long grey hair from his eyes, his video piece of a breathing rock. I am buzzing around them or vice versa? 

In a Dunkirk spirit all manner of vehicles convey precious cargo to temporary homes in tents and buildings around town. The vans gather and young men without bad backs load and sweat, load and sweat. Jamie with his head of curly black hair carries a marble top under one arm. I struggle to move it. Orlando, sweat beading from his brow and his armpit carries a vast sofa on his head. We then spend days planning and executing our stand display. Drills and hammers sing their traditional summer songs as this is enacted. Picture hanging with tremendous care and furniture moved one half inch to the left or right. Then comes vetting, figures academically and jealously hunch over everything to dispute and proclaim on the legitimacy of every morsel. This is followed by fevered rearrangement and then readiness for the public. 

A exhibition stand in play, ( image writer's own )

Preview day at Masterpiece is a lavish affair beginning with coffee and cakes and ending with champagne and canapés. Olympia has no such delights. But both days are well attended with enthusiasts, buyers and trade hangers on. The principle that Masterpiece is for the great and very valuable and Olympia is more reasonably priced and less serious is definitely most peoples understanding. As the days pass we will see who comes from our home shores, from America and from Europe. Hopefully all visitors will find delights to tempt them at every level of collecting.

The Internet crackles with gallery openings and invitations to the fairs. Lists of delightful and hopefully tempting treasures pop into the inbox or flop through the letterbox. 

This is London in June. It is an amazing month. Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Week 105 - The Arts Lane Needs Europe

I am British, I love my nation but I look out not in. I live in the Oval in London. I live near the tube - I love it when the tannoy says: "this station is oval". I am also served by a myriad of bus routes. From my home I can be at almost any major train station within half an hour and within an hour at all the London airports. I also drive and in an hour and a half I am at the Eurotunnel, from there the whole of Europe is but a few further hours away. This is all necessary to me as I am an antique dealer, I need to travel and I need to travel far and wide.

My sons are respectively a musician and an artist. The musician seems to find it convenient for me to travel back from nearly everywhere I travel carrying heavy and fragile recording equipment that he has bought on the internet. My other son sees the artistic world through spectacles fashioned from all periods of creativity and all countries. His body is in London and that colours his experience but his mind roams the four corners of the world looking for inspiration. They need the wider world too.

Just a few weeks ago there was a general election in Britain and the result was that the Conservatives won a full overall majority and are in power on their own for the first time in 18 years. Their majority is slim; in 1992 the Conservatives also won but they saw their majority dwindle over their term of office and they crumbled to inertia. The future is uncertain for them despite their success. 

They have been elected in part because they have committed to holding a referendum on whether Britain should stay as part of the European Union. For anyone in my business that is a crucial issue and one that threatens the centrality of London to the art trade. Politicians seem not to rate the importance of the art business. It is perceived to be intellectually and financially elitist and therefore the preserve of a privileged few. As such no politician hoping to garner the popularity of the masses can afford to be seen to be endorsing or supporting it. However I am in it and I survive because of it. I pay my bills because I buy and sell. I need Europe to be both an accessible and friendly market to sell to and to buy from. My friend Sylvain in Paris who has one of the most elegant shops on the Quai Voltaire is exquisitely French. He dresses immaculately and treats everyone with charm and discretion. Grey haired and small of stature he fights every day to buy and to sell internationally. My friend Marcus in Munich does much the same thing, or Paul in Belgium, Antonio in Madrid or Michael in Copenhagen - these are all successful people and I suppose they deserve no ones sympathy, but they work every day at their jobs doing their best and it is essential for them to trade across borders. They are all good citizens with one eye focused at home and another abroad; we are all the same.

European Union expressed through mushrooms, photograph writer's own

I love to eat in restaurants and I strongly feel that the activity of eating out with ones professional colleagues is one of the best bonds one can forge. A meal enjoyed creates a memory that the deal that precedes or follows it simply does not. You build trust. Europe isn't just about trade it is about the relationships you forge. If you travel to a country and try to immerse yourself in its culture you become sympathetic to it. In my travels I have found that I have become a European. There is hardly a country where I have not forged friendships and made purchases. We think globally but eat, buy and sell locally.

Week 104- Come Rain or Shine

Once again finding myself amid the hurly-burly of the confluence of fairs at Montpellier, Avignon and Beziers, I was encouraged to observe how current tastes and fashion intersect with the antiques world. These fairs take place four times a year and whilst some traders take stands at all three, the number of dealers you see nonetheless amounts to over 2000. If ever there was a barometer of the trade and current trends it is here. 

It began badly in driving rain. The Languedoc in southern France is one of the most popular holiday destinations because the weather is so marvellous. Arriving from almost anywhere in cold northern Europe, after a couple of claustrophobic hours held at the mercy of one of the discount flight operators you can slip out of your thermals into shorts and t-shirts - and bathe in warm Provencal colours and red wine to match. Dealers come to buy but also to have a little holiday. Though the trading day begins at 8 it is all over by midday at the latest, so the remains of the day and the night are there to be sybaritically consumed. The dealers come in two flavours - specialists and generalists. The former steam round covering the miles of stalls: eagle-eyed they pounce and move on. Often they have finished by 9 or 9.30. The others have to cover anything and everything; therefore they need to proceed at a thorough and gentle pace. Without fail the specialists end their trawl full of complaints, they have missed something or they have been asked too much money. Such is their pain. The others have their own problems. The fair opens to one and all at 8am - the dealers as well as the buyers. This means that not everything is unpacked from the vans as you enter. You need to go slowly and you need to go round each pavilion several times. Inevitably the generalist also moans about missed chances but it happens later in the day. So I am lucky to enjoy the full range of emotions, since I am travelling with two diehard carpet dealers, and keep bumping into an enthusiastic general dealer from Pimlico. Beziers was awash and after 10 minutes I gave up and repaired to my car to attempt to dry out, having bought nothing, barely able to see what was on offer through the downpour. The carpet guys are really called Owen and Michael but they are known to each other and their friends as Lucky (Mike) and (Owen) the Pirate. Later, drenched, they tell me reluctantly that they had to reject a rug because it was impossible to lift it out of the rain and mud. My other friend Christopher - is soaking, but I see him scuttling backwards and forwards from his hire car with an array of eclectic oddities. Despite the deluge, or maybe even because of it, his buying is thriving.

Giving up we head to Avignon and finer weather. En route we have an extended luncheon detour to the fabulously named Palavas-les-Flots. Overlooking the beach, beyond which- kite surfers strut their stuff in the gales; L'Escale offered us elegantly presented sweet Bouzigues oysters and a grilled fish called a Maigre, very like sea-bass. Then Avignon - a town that is one of the great Medieval walled towns and home to one of the most charming hotels. The courtyard with its ancient and beautifully manicured plane tree is worth staying for alone, but the Hotel de L'Europe is beautiful in every corner. Even my Kir was exceptional - a pale aromatic blush. Supper at a restaurant of only six tables called L'Estaminet, where we washed down a perfect soft and flavoursome Salade de Gesiers followed by a superb gigot d'agneau with the divine local Rasteau, which worked perfectly. 

Back to work and Avignon was catch-up time for most people who had struck out because of the rain. The shippers who are corralled in one of the pavilions worked away feverishly gathering and packing endless piles of purchases. My friend at Hedleys Humpers said that though the fair finished at midday they were still packing at 8.30pm. 

The final morning is Montpellier and this is where the champagne bar is. It is just a small white tent serving delicious bright and mineral rich Mayot-Lagoguey, but this is where at the end of the three-day marathon people come to reflect and philosophise. Now we will hear how fashion and the antique world collide and how happy that collision is. The shippers tell their own story with fevered packing and destinations marked for all the corners of the planet. My friends however - Lucky and the Pirate - complain that they have bought too little and paid too much. They bemoan the lack of new opportunities and new dealers. Christopher has bought well but that does not stop him reflecting on the lack of traffic to his shop in Pimlico. 

As the mood mellows so one topic of conversation begins to percolate to the top. The question on everyone's lips is: where does the taste for spurious white furniture - the so-called "shabby chic" - come from and when will it end? It affects everyone - not one aspect of interior decoration can survive untouched in the light of its glare. Carpets must be bland and washed out, objects from lamps to candlesticks must be without ornament or strong pattern or colour. Not everyone adheres to these rules, but the power of the aesthetic is formidable. Several very large stands at all the shows are dedicated to miles of decoratively destroyed painted furniture, and elsewhere, throughout the acres of old stuff, the spuriously and speciously damaged virtually new things proliferate with clear commercial success. Contemporary art needs space and the blandness of this style is gently respectful of the more serious art. There are other theories and probably genuine explanations but the world that lives and breathes through the public's enthusiasm for the old, the beautiful and the original craves a return to the appreciation of the real and period object. The fashion is still very strong and the market is there to both feed and consume. It seems that what is fashionable is almost a different market. Perhaps purveyors of the old school can hope for a burgeoning realisation that the truly original is actually something made to a good standard and that is both an echo of and a message from a specific time and place. In the end the pastiche might not seem so special and so innocent. Over a final parting glass of champagne we toast the fanciful dream that fashion will once more favour the antique.

Week 103- The changes wrought by age and time

I have started to notice and be upset by changes I see around me. I wonder whether this is like a new form of puberty, a phase we all go through when we hit a certain age. For all my life, up to now, I have celebrated and been eager to embrace the new and the innovative. I cannot wait for the new blockbuster film, the new skyscraper, the new restaurant, the new device, and the new anything really. But suddenly I feel the dead hand of nostalgia creep over me casting a dark shadow. 

In London in the Kings road there used to be a cafe called Picasso. It had banquettes in booths and was packed from early morning through the hours to early morning again. Sleazy tight-trousered men hung around waiting to chat up the young and innocent Sloanes, both male and female, and try to debauch them. The young never seemed to change and the sleaze wranglers never did either. It had been there since the 60s, the heyday of the Kings Road, and seemed to be indomitable; it was as if the whole place was preserved in aspic. It has gone.

In Madrid last weekend I was viewing the auction at Alcala and was looking forward to my tapas at O Cruceiros next door. The venerable white-jacketed and black-trousered staff behind the bar ministered to ones every need. A crude wooden square table with similar stools were my regular stopping point and their tomato bread, oily jamon and fluffy calamares kept me going through the day. Gone too.

calamares - image writer's own.

Now I am in Paris and the Hotel Lenox is being gutted. It is true that my heart belongs to the hotel de l'Universite, diagonally opposite, which I have been gracing since my parents took me there as a teenager; but the bar at the Lenox poured a mighty fine Martini and the deep luxurious coffee-coloured leather chairs have held me tenderly on many an occasion. Gone.

Heading to the Eurostar I got off the Metro and headed off following the signage for Grandes Lignes. Since the birth of the Eurostar I have walked up and turned right by the vegetable shop and headed for the escalator up into the heart of the station. Standing by the fruit there was always a cheerful evangelical who would blandish one with leaflets and God with a song and a broad toothy smile. Today we have to turn left and my wishful leafleteer has departed. 

All these places are like little stitches in the cloth of things I know. They have all been replaced, perhaps with better, cleaner and cleverer alternatives. But I feel their absence - tiny little cuts and losses. I guess there comes an age in life when change no longer seems like an opportunity but more like a loss, a burden and even a frustration. I no longer know the way; I have to learn new tricks.

As this altered perception of change becomes more and more noticeable so I find that this could equally be true for the antique and old master picture world. Those of us who have plodded along in an industrious way for our entire professional lives should be in a position to enjoy the fruits of our knowledge and experience. But it is not to be. Someone has demolished the building whilst we were not looking. Instead we have to dust the rubble from our clothes and look around just like new boys arriving at school. 

As I travel the world and meet with dealers who are mostly over 60 I notice that there is a clear binary divide between those who embrace the new and those who are waiting for things to change and 'get back to the good days'. I went to see a venerable dealer who has taken up residence in the basement of a friends shop. He has a fabulous collection. Everything in his area of the shop is exceptional, unusual and beautifully made. But he is waiting for the dealing world to rotate on its axis. He may - in the manner of the random movement of Brownian motion - bump into someone who could buy something, but he does not seek out markets or adjust his pricing strategy, or offer any explanation or justification of his prices. By contrast Simon Phillips, not far away, or in Paris Benjamin Steinitz are dealers who take a very different approach. They are all over the clients - offering help and advice and becoming part of the ongoing life of the objects. They realise the old days are just that - gone, dust. The new world is all about the clients and they are not looking hard for the exceptional object, they expect it to come to them.

But it is very hard to adjust. I see myself slipping away from the fundamental principle I have always tried to adhere to - that we must remain at all times nimble. For example; I know that I should not really buy things. Stock is money but rendered un-spendable. Knowing 'who' wants to buy 'what' is far more useful and lucrative. But I love things and I buy several things every week. The changes I see, the bastions that I thought I could rely on are crumbling all over the world. I want them all to come back. I know that this is not realistic and that I should shut my eyes, shake my head and go on into the new restaurant and see what they have to offer. 

The other day I met with Max Donnelly who now works at the V&A but came from the Fine Art Society, we had lunch at the Polish restaurant Daquise by South Kensington Station. As a child I used to be taken there as a treat following a visit to one of the museums. There was a huge glass case by the entrance full of cakes, strangely shaped and often equally strangely flavoured with things like - poppy seeds. It was all very foreign and exotic. Now it has changed; the new owner who is the son of the old one told me that he wanted to change everything but keep the spirit. I felt that here was the middle path. The staff came to the table and served us from dented and bruised saucepans, but the food they produced was delicious and fresh and still very traditional. So perhaps the answer is to weep for what has gone and but get excited about the new because the history will often be cozily wrapped up inside.

Week 101- Underground/Overground

The joy of London is that everything is here. There is an endless parade of buildings of every possible period and style available as a delicious smorgasbord. I have two bicycles - one for speeding and one for cruising. Depending on my mood and tardiness I will take in the city in different ways. On Monday I cruised up west on my Van Moof ( the cruising bike ) it is large heavy and looks like its made out of shiny new scaffolding. I took in the converted Bingo Hall on Kennington road, now luxury flats. Down past the Black Prince pub, recently featured in the film 'Kingsman' then past the old Doulton pottery factory, a terracotta clad 19th century fantasy, then the old docks where a plaque remembers Jon Snow's pioneering work on cholera, then the Art Deco Fire Brigade Station with its cunningly disguised vent in the form of an ancient obelisk. All this before I cross Lambeth Bridge, what a splendid city!

The Lambeth Doulton Factory, writer's own image

I am heading up to Le Petit Café in Stafford St to meet with my old Mallett colleague James Harvey who now works with Dreweatt Neate, the auctioneers in Donnington - who also now own Mallett. We are discussing the potential prospect of being consigned a group of pictures. Le Petit Café despite having a French name is totally Italian. They serve the best, most flavoursome al dente pasta dishes in London and some of the finest crispest fluffiest honey-coloured chips. Therefore as an act of sheer indulgence i nearly always order the scaloppa Milanese with spaghetti pomodoro with a side order of chips. I usually have to be carried back down the stairs afterwards but it is worth it as an occasional splurge. James is full of excitement as the new challenges of working for this very ambitious and dynamic auction house appeals to his entrepreneurial nature. In addition he is getting all the support from the management he felt he lacked before. We have a jolly lunch and he rushes off into the day ready to take on the world. Hardly has he left but Justin from Mallett walks up the stairs. He is also thrilled by the insertion of Dreweat Neat into his work world at Ely house. He is off to Palm Beach where Mallett are exhibiting. He has a long arduous journey across to Miami before he drives up to Palm Beach. He is nervous but excited about the future both in the short and in the medium term. We drink a glass of wine, strong black wine that warms us on a winter's day. Then he departs to be replaced by Mary Claire, the director of the Olympia fair. We drink water as she discusses her plans for a re-invigoration of the fair. She wants to bring a sense of value-for-money into the decorative arts world; as well as a sense of play and fun. These have been lost to the trade of late as one and all fear recession and a decline in business. It is good to hear someone so positive and enthusiastic for the future. She does have a real chance of success as the Olympia fair this year overlaps with many of the key auctions and the Masterpiece fair for a few days. It was a long lunch and I was grateful for my stately bicycle to ride me home.

Tuesday brought rides on the Northern Line. The Oval underground station is a beacon of calm in the manic world of commuter life. There is a bookshelf at the top of the escalator with books to borrow or take. There are large leafy potted plants placed as if we are in a Victorian conservatory. The tannoy softly wafts out classical music and on the wall there is a daily philosophical quote; today it is Oscar Wilde - be yourself, everyone else is already taken! Then off down into the horseshoe shaped tunnels, and within a minute or so I am in Clapham walking along the unusual, narrow but spacious feeling, island double platform (one of only two left on London Underground) and up out into the world to visit my restorer. Hatfields is my favoured workshop and it is miraculous going there and watching my projects there mature and reach ripeness. It is a never-ending pleasure to see how something that was bought with love and optimism break from its chrysalis and become what you saw in your minds eye when the dealer shook your hand many weeks ago. From there back into the depths and off to Bermondsey to see a friend who has come up with a plan to re-think and re-present the concept of the antique centre. He is young and full of the energy needed to accomplish the impossible. During my time running Mallett at Bourdon House I once learned a very humbling lesson. I used to allow members of staff who had been with the company for a year or so to go out and buy something. They had £5000 and if the object sold they had control of the initial £5000 and the profit to spend again. It was a good test and was an incentive too. I gave one newish chap his start and he shot off that very weekend and bought a pair of grey marble Solomonic columns. They arrived and I told him that I was disappointed. They were, in my view, an unsellable shape and an un-commercial height and what is more they lacked capitals. He was rather crestfallen following my criticism. We put them out on show and they sold handsomely straight away. He now has his own shop in Pimlico and does very well, Timothy Langston. The lesson for me was not that I was wrong but that with enthusiasm and commitment you can achieve anything. Tim passed on his passion for those columns and therefore they worked. I could not have pulled it off because I did not believe in them. My lunch partner feels committed to the idea of a hub in London for dealers and I am right behind him - I don't want to make the same mistake twice!

Oval Undergound Station with potted plants, writers own image.

I travelled home to the Oval to be greeted by my favourite words "this station is Oval"

Week 98 - Nose back to the grindstone.

The holiday period of Christmas and New Year seemed to last for a very long time this time round. A lot of drinking accompanied a lot of eating - a flock of roast birds and a shopping trolley of steamed fruit-based puddings. Crackers popping, silly hats worn in rakish fashion and bad jokes swirled round in my head for what seemed like an eternity. We drove and drove visiting friends and family spreading and receiving as much cheer as possible. 

Then it was all over. That Sunday came round which is the one before Monday. I know it always works that way but this is the Sunday be-fore the first working Monday of the year and you have to prepare yourself properly for the great return. 

I had planned to leap from my bed and take exercise followed by a hearty breakfast but it did not quite happen that way. I hauled myself out into the day following a rather later night than was wise. An eye-opening coffee and off I went into 2015. London was still deserted as I cycled around on that fell Monday. Everyone seemed to be reluctant to take the reins and get going. The streets lacked activity and many of the parking spaces were unoccupied around the West End like on a Sunday or a bank holiday. My bicycle did not go to Mallett and it did not go to Masterpiece. 

This New Year I am on my own and I feel like it is a real beginning and not just another rotation of the carousel. I had clients to meet and work to check up on at Hatfields, the restorers. The air was cold and rain was in the air, but the general grey gloom of the situation was strangely un-dampening. The workshop was open and they had worked on a pair of chairs that had escaped from a barn besmirched by the various winged and scuttling inhabitants. Now they were clean and the timber was revealed in a lustrous way. It gave me a thrill, like a surge of energy, to see the glowing streaky wood where just murk and dirt had been, like drawing a curtain and disclosing a sunny day.

Image credit: Symbol of Christmas taken by self.

I had a meeting in the Strand about a potential collaboration. The meeting began with a recitation of our various experiences over the preceding fortnight. Having got that behind us, we felt reinvigorated, as we got down to prospective planning. I am not sure what will ensue but it was very encouraging to contemplate something that 'may' happen later in the year. On the way out I got a call from a dealer in Norfolk and we discussed the forthcoming Battersea decorative show. 

Over Christmas you get the sense that you live in weird bacchanalian bubble, but re-connecting in this way made the trading world seem visible before me. In my inbox there were emails from the USA, China, Belgium and Denmark - with a sputter and a whirr my peculiar working world was sparking back to life. I got home and booked my tickets for Miami at the end of the month and to visit BRAFA on the 22nd. The year was beginning in earnest. 

Then I saw the leaflet for the Mayfair Antique Fair. I had never been, although the event has been running for a few years. It takes place in the Marriott hotel by Grosvenor Square, and is small and not particularly inspiring, but I met with various friends who were optimistically stalling out. The textile dealer Marilyn Garrow, Tim Langston who sells an eclectic medley of treasures in Pimlico and the ever elegant Charles Plante who is the master of selling stylish and very small pictures of baffling charm. They were all pleased to have got through 2014 and to be welcoming the New Year. I arrived towards the end of the day and the mood was cautiously buoyant. 

Back at home I looked again through my emails and realized that I needed to decide whether I was going to exhibit at the summer Olympia or not. It would be a significant commitment but I decided to go for it. Suddenly it occurred to me that at the end of this first working day of the year the shape of my first six months were now set. 

Many look at the year ahead and dread it, some look at it with eagerness and optimism. For a wandering unfocussed dealer like me facing a year like a fresh empty notebook - a brand new and challenging Christmas present - it was both, and I just have to get on with it. I finished the day with cocktails at Little House in Curzon Street. The place is small and always busy but if you get there after 10pm there is usually space at the bar. We ordered a Perfect Manhattan and a Vodka Dry Martini made with Ketel One, with its distinctive peppery note. They have - oddly like the barmen at London's Balthasar - decided to eschew shaking cocktails, and to stir them all instead. The reason being that stirring makes for less dilution and fewer shards of ice in your drink. We were served these in vintage cocktail glasses bought from a shop in Angel. I found this most apt. I do have a habit of seeing metaphor in everything but I detected in these delicious drinks a new smell in the air. 

A search for perfection had brought a subtle change in mixing, a splash of the new - and the introduction of a bit of antique into this fashion-conscious world was a good thought to take into the New Year. Cheers.

Week 97 - Memorial in Amsterdam

Another early start! 6 am and I am gathering my sons and chasing down to Folkestone. The traffic is light but I still manage to miss my slot at the Eurotunnel by 10 minutes. I had cunningly bought a discount return - £70 return for an overnight stay. Clearly aimed at serious shoppers/booze-cruisers. The logo-jacketed woman at the kiosk looked down and scolded me for my tardiness. She could, she said, squeeze me onto a shuttle leaving in 4 hours time. We had an agenda, I had dealers to meet and we had to be in Amsterdam by 5pm. I peered out of the window and thought for an instant. "What if I paid more money?" She made a face as if I was offering a bribe and then brightly came back with the 'flexi plus option'. £200 and ten minutes later we were loading ourselves into the train. The boys had grabbed sandwiches and I had snaffled two cups of espresso. Oddly, despite the fact that you pay for swift and painless access on to the train rather than the food - the snacks are a potential treat, but disappointingly they were measly and ghastly. My son is dairy intolerant and there simply was not an option for him. Everything had butter or cheese on it. Hopeless. 

Within a trice we were driving through France towards Belgium. The boys had been at a party the night before and so they slept. In addition my musical taste is not theirs so whilst they dozed I was not allowed to listen to music, as my choices would have been too toxic. 

My first call was at Paul de Grande in Jabbeke. He is twinkly, grey haired and wears thick-rimmed stylish glasses. Visually he is a cross between a trendy professor and an architect. He looks and is both clever and wily. We had a speedy look round his castle and sadly found nothing to buy. He and his girlfriend were heading off for a weekend in France or Germany. His first stop was a nearby auction. Depending on how he felt during the sale he would turn left to France or right into Germany. Such is the joy of living beside a big motorway in continental Europe. The boys slept on not waking even whilst I did my tour. 

Then we raced on to Haaltert to visit Joost, who has a beautiful house in the shadow of the main church there. There is a funeral taking place and the mourners pour out and process slowly behind the unexpectedly cheerful bright green hearse, which bears in gaudy white script the name of the undertaker, his services and telephone number. Joost has three rooms of furniture and they are always carefully and elegantly chosen pieces. I spot two things that could work. Photos and measurements ensue. These days a straightforward purchase has become a rarity. One needs time to think and assess. But these are two fabulous pieces and I hope to be able to use them. The boys are still asleep in the car. 

Our last stop before Amsterdam is Den Bosch or 's Hertogenbosch. This almost unpronounceable place is where the Masterpiece exhibitor Vanderven have their home base. But it is not them I am visiting it is Bill and Cornelia. They are the most wonderful welcoming couple. They have been in the business since Bill was a child and he is now pushing towards eighty. He buys and sells at a gentle pace now but his love and enthusiasm for the business is undimmed. We drink coffee and discuss the past and the problems of the present. I cannot stop myself buying a few trifles from him and it was with sadness that I dragged myself away and we packed the items into the car, thereby waking the sleeping beauties. Sadness because my calls today were all to the old guard. These are the last men standing. This road trip used to be so full of calls that you needed at least a couple of days to complete it. Now all it consists of is two men over 70 and one nearly 60. I had a great time chatting, reminiscing and buying. But the sense that it won't be around for much longer coloured the buoyant mood. 

These melancholy thoughts put me in the right mood for the visit to Amsterdam. Simon, the brother of my ex wife had been in a relationship and subsequently a marriage with David for a shade over 30 years. David had died the week before aged 94. He had been a powerful, strong, tall and upright man all his life and his last years had not diminished him at all. In many ways his elegant and dignified bearing had been a lesson and a guide to me and I felt strongly that I wanted to attend his memorial service. Arriving in the city on time and installing ourselves in the hotel we immediately left to dine with Simon and old friends at Cafe Amsterdam, a vast restaurant based in an old pumping station. We had eaten here all together on several occasions. The turbines glossily restored acting as a vivid backdrop to the oysters, brown shrimps and confit of red deer. We toasted David and remembered how many key moments of our lives he had been the witness to - or the marker for. The supper was not sad but it was full of thought and reminiscence. 

The next day at the Catholic Church the local bishop officiated. David was not Catholic but objected to the guitars in the Anglican Church nearby. He shied away from the details of the mass and even most of the other parishioners; instead he would take communion and then attend to the garden, pruning and planting where necessary. Thus he had passed most Sundays for over 20 years. The bishop looked at David's life and found it near exemplary. He had lived through a time when his sexuality could have landed him in jail. But with discretion but not deceit he had led a full and open life. Being the warden of a Reading university hall of residence for 30 years, having already had a career as a navy pilot; he then had a third life in retirement living with Simon in Amsterdam. Being gay was important and he abhorred any prejudice, but he was not militant. He just wanted and carved out for himself a full and unlimited life. We could all aspire to achieve as much. 

In torrential rain we rushed over to their flat to join together in an extended memory of David. Before long though the time came for us to head back to London; we turned our car towards Calais. Inigo had worn a collarless shirt in homage to David who often stated his hatred of restrictive collars. Vladimir sang melancholy songs and we spend the hours returning chewing over the day. I had wept for David and though the car was a bit full with boys and antiques, it seemed respectful to the years we had known each other.

Week 96 - The Smell of Art

There are times when you can get a strong whiff of how something or someone is doing. Everything has its own particular aroma and I was particularly struck by the pong of the Ming. One of the best museum membership cards in London is the one for the British Museum. With it you get a few discounts and access to the usually overfull 'friends' room, but most importantly you can waft past all the queues for the shows and just plunge straight in. For some reason I always get in a muddle at the BM finding my way to the entrance to any exhibition particularly difficult this time because it was in the new Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery - only the second show here I think after Vikings. So I get to enjoy an inadvertent perambulation around the sundry fixed exhibits. It is amongst these regular treasures that you get your first sense of the smell of the place. It is not that it smells bad. The simple truth is that it is quite hard to define exactly what is impacting on ones nostrils. It is not body odour, though the thick mob that seemingly always hang around the Egyptian mummies always has a full and warm smell. It is not the air-conditioning, which does give a peculiar controlled artificiality to everything. It is not the weather outside, which is typical London - grey, slightly wet, cold but not freezing. The weather does make an impact but it is nebulous - intangible. The museum has a very definite and individual smell; oddly, as soon as you enter the exhibition itself that smell changes. It changes as the lights dim and the crowd alters from those who are thrilled to be visiting the museum during their stay in London and those who have come specifically to enjoy this particular show . There are crowds on both sides of the door but the inner crowd is subtly different. This one is examining in detail the description boards and poring over each item with a vampires desire to drain it of all the knowledge it has to impart. It is equally impossible to define this smell but it is palpable and distracting. 

As I make my slow progress, in particular crouching down to take photographs of the underside of the red cinnabar lacquer table (this is the acid test of Chinese furniture as early pieces are totally unfinished and dry - almost dusty - below, whereas later pieces often have a lacquer finish) I stop for a moment to breath in this indefinable air. As I struggle and fail to analyse exactly what makes up this 'air of seriousness' I wonder what other smells there are in the art world.

My favourite new client has just bought a house and I am going to help him furnish it. I went round to have a first look. Lying on the floor was a heap of cardboard, because he and his girlfriend had been out shopping for saucepans. The newly emptied boxes were lying strewn all around. They had recently purchased a couple of fun objects from me at the Olympia fair - a cocktail shaker and couple of wine jugs, which were sitting on the counter in the kitchen. All around was a smell of novelty, excitement and nervous energy. The house will need a lot of work before they can move in yet the couple is full of anticipation and optimism, and that has a definite smell. Their future together, maybe even as parents etc, is all there, encapsulated in the smell of a recently opened cardboard box, new paint, and a kitchen devoid of the engrained grease of years of cooking. Not just new - fresh. It is a very appealing scent and though it will not last, it will linger in the memory. 

Some smells are off-putting though. I think the smell of old upholstery and curtains can really dis-tract one's attention. Back in the old days I used to visit Christie's South Kensington on a Monday night. A group of us would gather there for the late view and afterwards share a glass of restoring wine at Luigi Malone's next door. The bar is long gone now but for many a year it was a sort of Monday night clubhouse. The rooms at Christie's were full of furniture and objects covering all the main collecting areas. Crowds gathered too and sometimes even the occasional celebrity would flit around trying to look and not be looked at. Mick Jagger and Bob Geldof were regulars. But the smell of the place was not good. The imagination ran wild and probably correctly, ranging over why the old sofas and chairs, curtains, clothes and anything involving fabric smelt so bad - of damp, dust, decay and often death. One could almost smell the relatives loading their dearly-departed's collections onto the Christie's van. Nowadays the rooms are filled less often and the buyers browse and bid online. The social gathering has gone and so has the acrid smell. I miss that smell.

Back in the Ming exhibition I rise from the floor and continue my tour. This exhibition has been a huge success - friends from America have flown over more or less just to see it. The objects are well chosen and very expressive of the short period that they illustrate - socially, politically as well as culturally. Here, I think, is the so-called smell of success. The happiness you feel when suffused with optimism. Having been inducted into something new - or better still having had one's current knowledge focused and enhanced, makes one feel good. Perhaps we all smell better when we feel better. As I leave I reflect that though smell is the least glamorous of our senses it is probably more of a driver than we think. My son Vladimir always smells something before he buys it; defining the actual smell is not important - he says it just has to smell 'right'. If I buy a chest of drawers I always sniff a drawer, which also needs to smell right - the timber has to have lost its sappiness and have the smell of old saw-cuts and dust. It is the smell that counts.

Week 95 - Normal for Norfolk

I love shopping. In fact I would have to admit that I have made a career of it. So, when my friend, fireball antiquarian book dealer Daniel Crouch, asked me to accompany him as shotgun on a trip to my favourite shopping county Norfolk, it would have been churlish to refuse. My reward was not to be monetary but gastronomic, as we were to be booked in and fed at the Gunton Arms. Given that the destination was Norfolk this exchange suited me perfectly. 

Daniel is an awesome storyteller and the scrapes and the adventures he has been through would fill several books - let alone a small short blog. But there is hardly a city on this planet where he has not fought his way out of a bar and into the arms of a very sellable undervalued atlas or map. He is only a shade past 40 years of age and if he does not die young from excess he will be busy amusing his friends and making heavy sacks of money for plenty of years to come. 

Passing Norwich we toyed with visiting the dealer come carp enthusiast Richard Cranmer but he declined our visit. He is one of those dealers who have rooms of charming and sellable material but none of it is for sale. I only go once every three or so years, as it is pretty dispiriting and annoying. Thus we started our tour in Aylsham at the den of Pearse Lukies. He is known affectionately and accurately as Baldy. The epithet is particularly appropriate as he is a bald speaker too. He has an amazingly eclectic eye and you would be mad to waste your time predicting what you might encounter. True, you could predict and anticipate finding knackered bits of medieval carving and a flurry of early furniture but further guesswork would be futile. Daniel is looking for a refectory table for his hall and a trunk to use as both toy storage and a coffee table. We examine together a quantity - but a colonial brass bound Chinese hardwood trunk, a Charles X mahogany ottoman and an English late regency desk with extraordinary bone knob handles, distract me. As the discussions progress so a charming pair of rosewood William IV occasional tables, in residual order, emerge and I am compelled to take them on. Accompanying Pearse is his son Morgan who has come into the business and chatters away with great enthusiasm and innocent salesmanship - to the affectionate amazement of his father. We take our leave and head to Holt, I have spent money but Daniel has held back. 

Holt frustrated as Tony Fell was out - even though his shop said otherwise. We repaired to visit the shop of erstwhile London book dealer Simon Finch. He too was out, on this occasion the shop was open and manned but the boss was not in residence. Daniel rang and we made a date for the following morning. Then accepting defeat as inevitable - but also gleeful for what lay before us - we headed for the Gunton Arms. The background to the pub is that Ivor Braka, the very private contemporary art dealer, owns it. Back in the summer in London he had hosted a dinner for the artist sculptor Philip King. The dealer Thomas Dane had been cajoled, by me, into doing a show alongside and in Masterpiece and before it opened Ivor laid on an amazing feast at which Philip's praises were sung by the great and the good including Nicholas Serota from the Tate. Here in Norfolk the small charming flint clad pub on the edge of the Gunton estate has been freshened up with challenging contemporary art and the discreet luxury of the decorator Robert Kime. We ate in the Elk room cooked for by the large and homely chef who cooked rib eye steak and roast potatoes on a flat plate above a roaring fire. It all felt like a living medieval painting - a living Breughel amid the contemporary art. 

Our Holt friend Tony Fell was our first visit in the morning and like Pearse he failed to lure Daniel into a purchase. But I did come close. From Tony we sped to Voewood, the home of Simon Finch. The house is an extraordinary fantasy of Arts and Crafts; designed and built by the architect E S Prior for the Rev Percy Lloyd between 1903 and 1905, it cost the staggering sum of £60,000 to construct - according to Simon five times the original budget. The building is surrounded by sunken gardens created by offering up their soil to the building construction. Simon is a rock and roll antiquarian book dealer who has gone through a number of business and health vicissitudes. Today he looks tired and a trifle ragged. But as we toured his remarkable home he sprang to life, even his gnarly jumper seemed to perk up. Each room offered up a story and was a work of miniature genius; the imagination and creativity expressed could not fail to both charm and enchant anyone. Though he is currently in a sort of business limbo he is one of the most talented dealers and interior designers of our generation. We found ourselves exploring his cellars, which were choc-a-bloc with ephemera and several thousand books. We unearthed a marvellous bar stool. I could not help buying it and I manoeuvred it into the back of Daniel's swish silver Mercedes. I was sorry to leave. Heading home from my Norfolk sojourn I was once more pleasantly struck that here can be found such an amazing confluence of talented and original people.

Week 94 - Post Olympia Reflections

Sunday 5pm rolled round and the Olympia fair morphed from the serene elegance of a West London antique show into a frantic scramble of destruction. Everyone wants to get out at once, and we wrestle for access to the stores. Plastic boxes and bubble-wrap replace the aged visitors and family friends who formed the residual visitor crowd. I had been hoping for a final flurry of cheeky offers with which to tussle. Emails had been buzzing away from my various devices to supposedly interested parties for the last few days and expectation was present - if not high. But the phone remained stubbornly silent. I packed up, the carriers arrived and we all beetled around. A few handshakes, a few hugs and the occasional kiss later and my goodbyes are done and the car is threading its way through the traffic home. Three shows ended at Olympia at the same time, and the ensuing chaos and bad temper left all feeling a little bruised. Another long hour passes and van's contents have all been disgorged into my sitting room at the Oval and the process of re-ordering will begin in the morning.

But not before a semi-ritual of dining at the Dragon Castle in Elephant and Castle. When this restaurant opened its grandiose portals rumour had it that a group of Hong Kong Chinese had been conned by a wily estate agent into opening here. The famously rough area with its double roundabout and run-down shopping centre seemed a totally incongruous home for a glamorous and enormous restaurant. Not only did it seem out of place, it also served absolutely excellent dishes - both traditional and innovative. It has been flourishing now for over a decade and whilst the interior sheen has slightly rubbed off, the quality of the output is undimmed. My sons had notionally helped with the breakdown and their friend Oscar had been my sidekick all week, so we all deserved the post-fair Dragon Castle feast. We duly did what you might call a classic, which is to massively over-order - but then, because I was in the company of three ravenous young men, it all got swiftly and thoroughly demolished. The gastronomic highlights were their legendary soft shell crab, which is so light and crispy you almost have to hold it down to stop it floating off; and the sticky rice which comes folded into a leaf and is full of dark rice and mysterious strange dark bits. It is delicious, heavy and sticky - though billed as enough for the table, each lad consumes one solo.

So, it is over. The food is eaten. The goods are back at home and eyes start to scan the horizon for the next stop on the endless caravan trail of fairs. In retrospect, the fair had seemed poorly attended and there were times when one could look down the aisle and not even see the exhibitors as they were tucked away on their phones or nestled snugly drinking coffee at the back of their stands. You hop disconsolately from foot to foot. But what is the alternative? To sit in a shop and stare at the unopened front door? Despite the longueurs, despite the ghastly coffee, despite the visitors who come wearing fancy dress - like one who came in an illuminated flashing clown's hat, or the elderly gentleman who came in very short shorts - the deals do get done. Obviously we cannot all aspire to being the dealing machine that is Roger Lamb, but most of the trade stalling out their wares seemed happy enough as they scrabbled to tear down their booths and head off into the night. It is a debate that continues to rage. The costs of doing a fair are massively high in comparison to the annual rent of a shop. Yet, fairs continue to proliferate. I have a client in London who is always busy. I sent him a ticket to the fair and he came and he bought something I would never have anticipated. The significance of this is - I would not have guessed to email him its picture. What is more he would never come into a shop; that would be like me visiting one of the famous tourist sites of London. For example, I rarely, if ever, go to the Natural History Museum. I know it's there and I know that it is wonderful and I would enjoy it. But there is no need to go today because tomorrow it will still be there. There is - in other words - no pressure. The conclusion is that you need to do fairs even to see your local clients - in addition to the hope that you will make a new friend who will ask you to fulfil all their buying needs for the next 20 years. Well, that would be nice! The modern dealer needs to get out and about; sitting waiting for the next transaction is a recipe for inertia and decline. But writing off shops is also clearly a mistake. Many people like to visit a shop, but the visit to premises has become a planned choice rather than a serendipitous accident. Clients come and see you only if you make the journey worthwhile. It is all an effort. In the end I did business at the Olympia fair and it was hard work; but there again a little hard work never hurt anyone.

Week 93 - Death Stalks the Hall

I took my little black dog out for a walk. She always sits sweetly and patiently at the lights. She trots along obediently and ever so slightly swaggering she crosses the road and scampers off into the churchyard. She runs and leaps with puppyish enthusiasm despite being a mature 2 years old. She chases the squirrels and rushes blindly after the pigeons. She sniffs and is sniffed and it is all very innocent and charming. This morning she spots a flock of blackbirds and rushes. They scatter screaming in indignation - but one is a bit lame. It hops rather than flies off. A short but lethal dance ensues as the black bird narrowly escapes the dog again and again - and then she strikes. The pretty gentle silk-coated spaniel bites down hard on the neck of the blackbird. She twitches and twitches and each time the dog holds on harder and more lethally. Death is the inevitable conclu-sion. I arrive on the scene too late to stop the initial strike; I watch from afar, it is like a ballet being performed on a stage. I debated for a second and decided to let nature take its course. Separating them would have left the bird mortally wounded and it seemed the better of the potential evils to let her to finish her kill. She was effective. I put the bird in the bin and we went home. The dog was breathing hard; the intensity of the moment clearly making her heart beat fast. 

After this morning drama I headed off to the Olympia Winter Antique Fair where I am exhibiting for the first time. It is an odd thing to say - as I have been an exhibitor at Olympia countless times as a scion of Mallett, but this is the first one with my name over the door. The winter Olympia has shrunk over the years, from its heyday when it covered the main floor and the balcony. It is down to just over 100 stands, which is still a big fair, but it feels small and intimate. It is a beautiful fair too. Simply built it has a neo-classical white design, which compliments the magnificent white ironwork of the building. The dealers have a collegiate air and everyone is very encouraging and helpful. The opening is low key with a few glasses of near toxic sweet Prosecco, which encourages one and all to remain sober. Sales do happen and the dealers seem not too gloomy. My neighbour Roger Lamb is dapper and charming. Medium height with well cut grey suits and hair. He sells traditional old school English furniture. He is pretty old school himself. But he does it with a weather eye to modern taste. He has eschewed damask silk for modern un-patterned fabrics and this renders the Georgian mahogany and walnut much more contemporary. In addition he is commercial. His prices are low and he is happy to take a short profit. He may not be a Young Turk but he is
totally young in his outlook. As I watched my black dog kill I worried that it was an omen or a symbol of the demise of our trade. But it was not true - here before me is the future. I am optimistic be-cause I can see that the wheel does not have to re-invented it can be re-upholstered instead. 

But the transition is hard and amongst my friends death is closer than ever. Recently, two great figures in the trade have died, coincidentally both called Paul. Paul Johnson from Ireland, who was the pre-eminent dealer in 18th century Irish furniture and Paul Tomasso, father of the Tomasso brothers who are titans in the world of great sculpture. The trade is greatly diminished and a little less interesting following their passing. The sad mood of the moment is enhanced by the weather in London, which has been very peculiar. It has been unseasonably very warm and the skies are blue. But Nature is not fooled and the leaves are brown and make a lovely rustle as you brush through them on the grass. The pavements look like they have been printed with leaves as the damp leaves marks when the leaves are tidied away. But now suddenly it is getting cold and the rain is tumbling. The season change echoes the departed and seems a herald to a change across the market too. The sales in NY at the Haughton fair and in the auctions were erratic and patchy and that is not encouraging. There the mid term elections maybe acted as a distraction. But the omens are that there will be another lurch downwards. Here in London the contemporary art world seems still strong but even there is a new air of wariness abroad. A change is in the air here too. Again the untimely but natural death in the park seams portentous. This is the natural way of things and though one can intervene it is ultimately useless, what must be must be. But Roger Lamb is hope for us all. They say that Antique dealing is the second 'oldest' profession. We will survive, find a way and some will flourish.

Back at the fair the night is falling and the interior glow of the fair takes over from Natural light and a wintery twinkle takes over. Next door a fair called the Spirit of Christmas is opening and crowds and crowds are queuing up to buy early Christmas cheer. The buzz washes through and cold optimism pervades.

Week 92 - Quo Vadis?

It is a strange moment. I do not know where to go or what to see. There is so much going on that it seems easier to stay in bed and pull the covers up over my head and sing nursery rhymes. Frieze is in town and it has two identities - Frieze and Frieze Masters. In Berkeley Square Patrick Perrin has his launch PAD. Elsewhere private gallery shows and public exhibitions are opening like untimely spring flowers all over town. Coupled with this my alma mater Mallett has been sold to Stanley Gibbons, the group founded around the stamp people, but which now owns the auction house Dreweatts Bloomsbury, Baldwins and Apex. The difficult and challenging times that Mallett have faced over the last half-decade are entering a new chapter. This is all taking place in my backyard, so to speak. But there are even more excitements and temptations for foreign travel. Across the pond in our art world twin city of New York there is the auction of the Kentshire gallery. In addition, pushing through the notoriously heavy doors of the 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue you will encounter the International Fair hosted by the (appropriately) veteran fair organisers Brian and Anna Haughton. 

So I am in bed and I don't know who to see or who to visit. I am flummoxed whether I should take a plane or mount my bicycle and head up to the west end. New York is the biggest pull. Back in time the principals of the business Fred and Bob used to come to London every couple of months. They bought widely from every dealer spreading good will and the dollar to happy recipients. Bob has thinning black hair and a charming calm demeanour and Fred has bushy once brown, now grey wavy hair and is full of febrile energy and NY sardonic humour. Bob's children have headed west to California and are movers and shakers in the film business, or so I gather. Fred is married to Marcie and they produced two children Mathew -sensible, steady, but fun too; and Carrie - one of the most original women to grace the planet. She has one of those imaginations that you know could go anywhere and a sense of business that would scare a Rothschild. These two have come into the antique trade. Kentshire has changed however; like so many of their generation the guys found that the English furniture and decorative objects gig had become too much of a grind - they sold their huge downtown building and all their stock is going to be sold at Sotheby's. Meanwhile their wives had founded a jewellery emporium, which flourishes. Carrie and Mathew trade now in the rocks and precious metals world and Bob and Fred are sitting back. In my early days in Mallett I often sold to them; in my mid years I got to know the second generation; latterly I have come to respect and admire them as they carry the baton on into the future. I would love to be present as the hammer comes down on the past and the next phase springs phoenix-like from the last lot. 

But that is not all, Mallett are exhibiting at the International show. They dropped out last year and now return, but the main interest for the onlooker is the gossip about the takeover. If they have fabulous things and make eye-watering sales it would be wonderful but everyone will want to find out about their future. But I am compelled to stay in London, though the urge to fly is strong I cannot resist Frieze Masters, its contemporary forebear and the satellite PAD. 

I visit PAD late, have a quick canter round and a brief discussion with Francois Laffanour of Galerie Downtown. He always puts on a spectacular show of 20th century design masters and this is no exception. We both vet Miami Basel Design and he is impressively charming at all times, as well as being on of the pre-eminent dealers in his field. He is content with business but not thrilled - the mood of the fair. Upstairs I am attending the launch dinner of the Art Book, a new magazine created and published by Oscar Humphries - my least reliable friend. The wine flows and Patrick Perrin is very supportive. The food is eccentric - backed potato and caviar as the main course. But it is delicious and clever - a bit like Oscar. The magazine is amazingly beautiful and heavy and we stagger out into the night flexing our biceps to bear it home. 

Frieze is visited by the world and it has its own particular identity being both international and very British. It is the secret fact of Frieze that it is a great place to start collecting. The works are mainly quite reasonably priced, under £10,000; and carefully curated by the management team, so you do get a good chance of buying a future star. Frieze masters is totally different - here the great works get a discrete and elegant display. There are Old Master pictures, Sculpture, Antiquities, a smattering of Tribal and Asian art and the occasional photograph - Hans Kraus, everyone's favourite early photography dealer, for example. There is no Jewellery and no furniture so it does not compare or compete with Masterpiece or even TEFAF. It is a serious show with serious works and it does not really have anything to do with Frieze down the road except for a few of the hot shot contemporary dealers who get the chance to show work which is older than 10 years. 

I did get out of bed and in the end my bicycle served me well.

Week 91 - LAPADA, Battersea and Rome

In Berkeley Square you normally admire the trees, the tired bedraggled grass, and the stoic office workers stalwartly enjoying fresh air, whilst cars and trucks go round and round, circling like lions around Christians in the Colosseum. But at this time of year the pattern is disrupted by the landing of a massive tent, like a space ship, on the north side of the square. The tent serves as home to the LAPADA fair first and then the PAD fair will follow. The former is the flagship for the provincial dealers and they wave the flag doggedly, confidently asserting the value and significance of the local dealer. There is a smattering of the London trade too, together with slightly forlorn and lost looking international dealers - they look like travellers who have caught the wrong train and are doing their best to get home. The look of the fair is very chic as Stabilo - the builders of TEFAF and Masterpiece - have built it. White autumnal leaves adorn the carpet, and the ever elegant director Mieka stalks the floor ministering to the wants and needs of her clients, visitors and press. The mood amongst the trade is wary but optimistic and as the opening day passes so does the spread of little red measles dots indicating business is underway. I don't stay long as I find the dominant black decor slightly funereal but my friends are happy enough. 

Further south in Battersea Park the Decorative Fair is open. This is a charming fair full of activity and life, animated particularly by sleeping, strolling and barking dogs. Furniture is always being carried in and out as no dealer wants to leave sold items on their stand. The flow makes the whole room feel very lovely and there is a buzz - possibly deceptive, as chests of drawers on the move and the occasional sofa do not necessarily indicate a mass of sales. But the crowd is welcoming and there is a trolley that rolls around guided by cheerful Australian girls selling champagne and cocktails. The feeling is very much one of a party. I am tempted by a few items and naturally I gravitate towards Ferdinando Jewels. Louise is sharing with Nick Wells, one my alumni from the university of Mallett. Their stand looks well and as per usual Louise is mobbed by women trying things on. 

My flat has been transformed into a workshop as a keen young man called Oscar comes round and transforms the black and tarnished objects bought in the south of France into shiny silver things. Cleaning silver is hard work but the results are magical. The deep grey and black becomes a precious metal and the craftsman's original design emerges from the gloom like a butterfly from its chrysalis. Oscar sits in the garden, his hands black with cleaning products and the grime from the objects. His mood is good because, though the work is hard, the results are visible and rewarding. 

A day wrestling with London Transport and Ryanair and we are in Rome. Sitting in front of us on the plane is a large man with a straggly beard. He drinks double vodkas throughout the flight, each time with a different fizzy drink mixer. He begins quiet behind his over-scale sunglasses, but gradually the alcohol warms him and he starts chatting to and joking with the small fair-haired air-hostess. By the end of the two and a half hour flight he is garrulous and waxes grandiloquent on the joy and speed of international travel. He laughs loudly and we are all a little awkward but thank-fully we have just landed and we disembark swiftly. On the ground he lets out a quick roar of excitement at having arrived and the start of his Roman adventure. I share his pleasure, his thrill, and his wonder at the miracle of being able to wake up in London and to watch the sunset in Rome. We are very lucky and the fact that this time it took an exuberant drunken Chilean living in Kingston-upon-Thames to bring it home to me, it is all true. Dinner at Da Fortunato beside my favourite building in the world, the Pantheon. The oppressive, unforgiving lighting which is such a classic of old school Italian restaurants becomes unimportant as a plate of Parma ham arrives still slightly warm from the slicing machine. This is accompanied by warm fluffy stuffed fiori di zucchini and a small football of milky Mozzarella. Falanghina white wine and dark red Aglianico del Vulture add a volcanic soil minerality to our dining which wakes us up for our pepper and black truffle pasta and keeps us going until the last mouthful of the beef tagliata that rounds off our meal. A shared bowl of those succulent jewels of the forest, wild strawberries, and all that remains is the walk home via the best ice cream shop in Rome - Giolitti. Two tiny scoops - one of pistachio and one of blackberry sorbet - and then bed, contemplating the wisdom of the Chilean. 

The Palazzo Venezia is home to the Rome Biennale. The palazzo is only partially obscured by the fair and its magnificence creeps out at the corners and when you look up the ceilings. The history of any building in Rome is a tapestry of information but this building is both an erstwhile papal residence and was also used by Mussolini, whose presence can be felt everywhere. Many of his most important speeches were delivered from the balcony to crowds in the piazza below, and the exhibitors are keen to recount tales of where he kept and engaged with his numerous girlfriends. The fair is mixed in style with a smattering from every epoch and style. Some of the Italian Masterpiece exhibitors show here. Most claim to exhibit for reasons of loyalty to their capital rather than pure commerce. But as you would expect, elegance abounds, with fine pieces in every room - the mood is fundamentally buoyant. One exhibitor I spoke to had come not anticipating much but had sold eight paintings. As they often say, "You won't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket."

Week - 90 - The Paris Biennale to Beziers

Paris wakes up the art world's Autumn season every two years. 2014 is one of those years. On the 9th of September there is a huge and fancy dinner for the VIPs, yours truly not invited once again. And on the 10th at 6.30 the normal preview crowd gather to enjoy the much anticipated glamour of this capital city art show.

But Paris is not just about the Biennale - the whole city of art and design sparkles in the early autumn sun and shows proliferate. My friend Sylvain, who has an exquisite gallery on the Quai Voltaire, is putting his best foot forward with a gathering of Meissen porcelain. Over on the Right Bank in the Faubourg St Honore, Philippe Perrin is showing photography and polished steel furniture, whilst next door Marella Rossi, the charming daughter of the legendary Jean Marie Rossi, has a mixed show with tribal art and has recreated a room from a film-making collector's home. Down the road the ever energetic Benjamin Steinitz has a one-man show of the Art Nouveau cabinet maker Le Lievre. Back over the river and Nicolas and Alexis Kugel have a spectacular show of silver-gilt pieces from Strasbourg dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The city buzzes with excitement as everyone gossips about who is doing what and where. We rush from one much vaunted event to another, passing by Sotheby's and Christie's on the way. There is a palpable sense of the market rousing itself from its slothful summer recess and everyone is now raring to go and get down to the serious work of buying and selling.

Feeling a little naughty I decided to arrive at the preview at 6.45 rather than be there on the dot of the opening time. I presumed that this would allow the crowd to enter and I could therefore stroll in without the burden of queuing. What a mistake. The line was horrendous. It snaked right round from the front of the Grand Palais past the corner and almost around to the back. It is not often you see such a dressed-up crowd being kept waiting, kicking their high heels. Nearly an hour later the aficionados were finally let in. You cannot compare any venue to the Grand Palais which is simply majestic - a festival of glass and iron, it swoops and swirls with captivating verve. Any show has a challenge matching up to these surroundings. The look of the Biennale changes every iteration and some years it is truly spectacular. In 2012 the central area was dominated by a massive Montgolfier-style balloon. This year the feeling was more muted. The theme was garden pavilions, each stand decorated with a white trellis against a green ground. The carpet was green too with patriotic fleur-de-lys amid subsidiary scrolls. However, the Ruinart champagne flowed like the Seine and the snacks were copious, innovative and delicious. Pretty and elegant waiters popped up hither and thither with micro work stations from which they dispensed morsels of foie gras or finely chopped aubergine on a leaf of crispy parmesan-infused pastry. The preview crowd began their progress in a demure fashion but sadly as the evening progressed so the event descended into the familiar scrabble for delights from the caterers.

As as been the pattern over the last few fairs, jewels dominate with all the big names parading their wares. This year the laurels for the most talked-about show went to the Hong Kong maverick Wallace Chan who brought pieces of extreme fantasy and eye-watering extravagance. It will be a long time before I forget the the white jade model of a fisherman draped in rags of 24 carot gold and bearing his catch of ruby and diamond encrusted fish. Garnishing this drama are a few traditional dealers in furniture, paintings, sculpture and and antiquities but they seem peripheral, an adjunct - not the main attraction. I did see many masterpieces; Chenel put on a superb and dramatic display of white marble from ancient Greece and Rome. Gismondi brought some breathtaking examples of Pietra Dura, quite the best I have seen in Years. The dealers crowded round gasping in awe. It was also always a treat to see the dealers Kraemer who have some of the finest French furniture on the market and who very rarely show at fairs apart from this one.

Weary with opulence we headed off to the Brasserie Lipp where the show ceded prominence to a simple meal in this legendary place. Dark red wine from near Beaune, called St Joseph, accompanied by foie gras, delicate sweet small oysters followed by a robust and hearty steak tartare. Good discussion ranging over the joys of Paris and we were sent off into the night for rest.

A few days pass and I find myself at the other great trade awakening. The south of France plays host four times a year to the confluence of brocante fairs at Beziers, Avignon and Montpellier. Each one has probably over a 1000 dealers stalling out their wares and Beziers kicks off with two days of hard sell. Everyone gathers early looking for the bargain that will invigorate and stir up their Autumn trading. The bustle begins at 8 and the hurly-burly of the buyers' hustling and the traders' unpacking ensues for 3 hours and then calm is restored; lunch and culture follows. This pattern is repeated over the next few days at the other venues. Everyone sells and everyone buys and equally everyone complains that business is not what it used to be.

I buy something straight away; it is quite useless but I feel it serves as a symbolic act, you have to start somewhere and the bent, rusty plant stand is like my entry ticket. I can move on from there, and I do. This is not to say I do not fritter away more euros but there are also useful and commercial temptations and I make regular trips to the friendly on-site shippers carrying objects to be wrapped up and trucked over to London.

So, the season has begun, and now I have to knuckle down to the grind of selling - not just the fun of spending money.