All The Fuss Of The Fair

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday August 7, 2002

Peter Fish

There has been much huffing and buffing behind the scenes as members of the Australian Antique Dealers Association prepare their best pieces for their annual fair in Sydney next week.

The fair, which uses strict vetting procedures to ensure the myriad wares on offer are totally pukka and correctly described, runs from Thursday to Sunday at Wharf Eight, Hickson Road, on the edge of Darling Harbour.

Former AADA president John Hawkins, who exhibited part of Kerry Packer's silver collection at last year's fair, has an imposing birdcage and an elaborate bookcase among other exotica on his stand this year.

The bookcase more correctly a bureau bookcase is Chippendale style and period and is capped by a swan-neck pediment, a classic flourish for grand 18th-century furniture. Hawkins says he bought it first at London's Grosvenor House Antiques Fair in 1973 and it has since come back into his hands.

The birdcage, as you might expect, is not quite what you'd buy for Bertie the budgie to hang off a hook in the kitchen. In Regency wirework, it stands almost 3 metres high and belonged to the Marquis of Bute. ``It's a nice thing for the rich but there don't seem to be too many of them around these days," Hawkins says.

Moss Vale-based Hawkins spends much of his time overseas and has just returned from three months in Britain ``trying to make a quid on the other side of the world". He regards Australia as a good place for buying antiques but not for selling particularly with Britain still dominating the international antiques market and the pound riding high.

The Australian dollar may have improved against the US dollar but he says he still gets nearly $3 for every pound's worth he sells in Britain and claims to have shipped out 11 containers of antiques bought locally.

But Hawkins is optimistic for this year's AADA fair, saying the buying opportunities are better than ever. Last year's fair proved a boomer for him, with $300,000 in sales, although two-thirds of that went overseas.

Australiana dealer and author Andrew Simpson will show a fine early cedar chest of drawers dating from about 1835 among other furniture and ceramics. It features ``Greek inlay" and original brass handles.

The chest is about a metre wide and of standard five-drawer configuration. Simpson says what puts it ``on top of the food chain" is the Greek inlay of rare ebony string pine is considerably more common and brass handles compared with the rather more humble turned wooden knobs (which are almost invariably replacements).

More Australiana features on the stand of ceramics dealer Alan Landis, who has been hunting down English porcelain with Australian flora and fauna designs.

Star of his stand at the fair will be a complete 1906 Royal Doulton dinner service featuring Australian wildflower designs in excellent condition. Most such services provide for four or six diners but this caters for 10 and comprises about 60 pieces including gravy boats, tureens and even ladles. ``In 25 years I've never seen one so comprehensive," Landis says.

There's also a 1912 Royal Worcester liqueur set hand-painted with wattle flowers after originals by Ellis Rowan. It comprises a flask (which has some damage) with a sterling silver stopper and four small tumblers and comes in its original box with the label of the Sydney store that sold it, Flavelle Bros. Landis says Rowan will be the focus of great interest later this year, with an exhibition of her work at the National Library in Canberra.

His stand will also have numerous individual pieces with Australian designs from as little as $80.

A highlight of the antique textiles at the Nomadic Rug Traders stand will be two fine 19th-century rugs from the Qashqai a loose association of tribes that roamed southern Persia and whose colourful weavings are widely admired.

Both rugs are from the Qashquli tribe, which is generally acknowledged as producing the most finely woven carpets with a highly individual design repertoire.

The smaller of the two pieces has a particularly elegant design featuring central medallion and spandrels (corners) filled with flowering vines.

Nomadic Rug Traders' Ross Langlands describes the design as ``classic Persian not rustic but very refined and delicately drawn, the corners with delicate tracery".