The Datebook Autumn 2017 | Page 21

LAPADA ART & ANTIQUES FAIR BERKELEY SQUARE T his is the main annual event for the largest society of professional art and antiques dealers in Britain and extremely prestigious. This year its principal sponsor was the private client investment house Killik & Co and its Floral Partner was McQueens. The choice of the main stand at the entrance this year was an attempt to be unconventional which fell disastrously flat. Lucas Rarities displayed some jewellery as in an exhibition, which was highly ingenious. A ‘Mira Flygel’ PH grand piano designed in 1931 by Poul Henningsen, made in 1932 by Andreas Christensen Flyger of Copenhagen, £145,000 from Hatchwell Antiques. Individual stands used imaginative ideas to be distinctive. Lennox Cato Antiques from Edinburgh used a Regency gilt copper centrepiece filled with fruit; Spicer Warin used birch trees as a background to their jewellery and Ellison Fine Art positioned their portrait minatures with panache. The prize for the most extroadinary stand must surely go to Hatchwell Antiques. It but advertised using neon lights, jokey signs and vulgar cardboard cut outs. A large and remarkably complete Sabre tooth cut skull ‘Machairodus giganteus’ dating to the late Miocene, circa 5-10 million years ago from ArtAncient. The description of this event as containing a “cabinet of curiosities” is extremely apt. A great many of the stands contained an amazing collection of diverse artefacts. Art Ancient actually showed off its objects from past centuries, including a dinosaw claw, using a timeline 18ct yellow gold, platinum and diamond ‘en double’ tiara, circa 1900, from The Gilded Lily Jewellery Ltd. A rare self-portrait of 18th century British artist Joseph Wright of Derby, originally believed to be a portrait by a ‘follower of Joshua Reynolds’ from The Parker Gallery. contained a coffee table on a 1930s radial aircraft engine, a double scale training model of an M1 World War II carbine and an extraordinary “Mira Flygel” PH grand piano. The huge trunks of the trees in the square were specially decorated by various stands within the marquee. Seeing so many glittering objects was like combining a tour of the London Silver Vaults with a visit to an art gallery and ending up at a sumptuous mansion afterwards surrounded by art and antiques from past centuries. RICHARD FITZWILLIAMS THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK 19