English Rose for Italian retro in Bath

Above: The English Rose kitchen chosen for Time Out, currently in the Bath showrooms of Source in Bath

Above: Original Saturn lamps will feature as part of the funtastic deco look


Bath, Somerset UK - FATHER and son team, Rod and Tom Donaldson of Source Antiques in Bath, have won a £4,000 contract for the supply of an English Rose kitchen for a new coffee bar in the Guildhall Market in Bath. Time Out is run by Mike Watts and Wendy Race. "It will give the good folk of bath a taste of retro Italian in the heart of Somerset, and will be a funtastic lookalike 1950s deco shop," Rod said.

source-antiques.co.uk

Salvo Fair 2009 Trade Day open to the public

Trade Day, Friday 26th June 2009, Salvo Fair, Knebworth, Herts - Due to a printing error in Knebworth's 2009 events leaflet, the trade day on Friday will be open to the public. As a consequence the entrance price will be £7.5o per person instead of £10, and all Knebworth's normal facilities, will be open. The opening times are 11am - 4pm. The Fair will also be open as normal on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June.

Tickets can be bought for Friday, Saturday or Sunday by calling 01749 813899 or online at www.bradsons.co.uk

Retrouvius design Tracey Neuls’ Pop-Up Shop

reuse of the week
Tracey Neuls’ Pop-Up Shop, designed by Retrouvius

Salvo supporters Retrouvius designed the display for the first ever retrospective of Tracey Neuls’ in her pop-up showroom in west London. Examples of the designer’s stunning, hand-crafted shoes dangling from the ceiling on red string, and displayed upon archival drawers that had been salvaged from the Natural History Museum in Edinburgh by Retrouvius.

The show coincides with with London Fashion Week, and will be running until 10 March at 1-5 Exhibition Road, Brompton, London, SW7 2HE

The museum drawers come from a selection which Retrouvius are selling for £15 each + vat (dims vary). The drawers come in different sizes, woods and styles which can be easily configured into storage plans.









Blueprint


Retrouvius

Three village post boxes stolen

Three Royal Mail post boxes have been stolen from villages in west Somerset.

The boxes all contained mail and two were taken with their stands and concrete fixings - leaving a hole in the ground. The third was cut off.

Police believe the boxes were probably taken as items of memorabilia rather than for scrap metal. "There is a market for them - through a reclamation yard or an internet auction site - you could expect to pay anything between £200 and £400. They are all clearly identifiable so if anyone is concerned about an item they have or are offered for sale we can easily see if it is one that has been taken from the area." Insp Samuel Williams said.

BBC News

The eco factory brought on eBay

Rye and Battle Observer
Article highlighted by Anthony Reeve of Lassco

Solar UK are currently building a new Eco Factory which will become the base for the research, development and manufacturing side of Solar UK. A state of the art seventeen sided structure has been bought on eBay and transported to the site on the outskirts of Battle for this project. The original building was a public service vehicle training facility at Coventry City College. Built in 2002, it was due for demolition last year to make way for housing in the city.

Solar UK Director Geoff Fox saw the advert for the entire structure on eBay and agreed to buy it. It was dismantled over a period of several weeks last spring and transported on 36 trucks to the new site at North Trade Road Battle. "Every single part of the building was saved right down to the door handles," said Mr Fox.

Ground works were designed so that no material left the site during construction. Underfloor insulation has been recycled from a giant refrigerated unit that was demolished at Gatwick Airport and was destined for landfill and straw bales will be used for wall insulation.

All rainwater will be collected in a large moat or swale at the front of the building and this will be recycled for use throughout the building.

Electricity will come from a wind turbine and photovoltaic panels while hot water will be supplied by Solar UK Laser trackers. The exterior will be clad in dark green polished granite while the roof will feature a glazed pyramid.

The project is due for completion in late summer.





Rye and Battle Observer

Yves St Laurent sale defies the credit crunch

Yves St Laurent sale, Christie's Paris
SALE TOTAL: 373,935,500 (EUR) Prices include buyer's premium

A string of world auction records tumbled as the Yves St Laurent-Pierre Bergé collection of art and antiques sold for astonishing prices at Christie’s in Paris this week. The three-day sale realised a total of €373.9m making it the most valuable private collection ever sold at auction.

Monday’s first sale, of impressionist and modern art, took €206m and saw record prices paid at auction for works by Matisse, Brancusi, Mondrian, de Chirico, Duchamp, Klee and Ensor.

Tuesday’s sale of 20th-century decorative art and design saw another 12 world records. The highest price, €21.9m, was paid for an art deco masterpiece, Eileen Gray’s “Dragons” armchair of around 1917-1919. In the sale of silverware, every one of the 111 lots sold for a total price of €19.9m, a record for a silver sale.

The top lots in Wednesday's sale of Asian art, ceramics, furniture, Islamic art and antiquities were a pair of 18th-century Chinese bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit made for the zodiac fountain at Emperor Qianlong's summer palace in Beijing, which sold for €15.8m each. Earlier in the week a French judge had rejected an attempt to block the sale on grounds that the bronzes were looted by French and British soldiers during the 19th century.

Chinese dealer, Cai Mingchao who bided for the two bronze heads has since reveled that he had submitted the winning $40-million bid as a patriotic gesture to block the sale. He was acting on behalf of a non-government agency dedicated to repatriating Chinese artworks.

The auction house Christie's has not disclosed what action it will take against the dealer. Art experts have warned that Cai could be subject to civil and even criminal charges for submitting a fraudulent bid in the auction, which was conducted anonymously by telephone. However, Christie's might be loath to prosecute Cai, who has become overnight a Chinese national hero. Photographs of the 40-year-old art dealer graced the front pages of many Chinese newspapers, and an online poll in China found that most approved of his actions.

Cai, a well-known collector, owns an auction house in Fujian province. He made headlines in 2006 by paying $15 million for a Ming Dynasty Buddha. His background apparently allowed him to pass the strict screening process used by auction houses, which requires bidders to submit credit information in advance of bidding.


Above: These two heads come from the Zodiac Clock in Beijing’s Imperial Summer Palace. They were removed by French and British troops who looted the place in 1860. [pict from Telegraph]


The Art Newspaper

Christie's

Good crowds good prices

Rural and Domestic Bygones, Gaze Norfolk

"Things are definitely on the up", said Carl Willows of Gaze auction rooms at the recent rural and domestic bygones sale. Nearly all of the 986 items auctioned found homes.

Mr Willows said, "It was a good sale with many new faces which is always encouraging. There was a buoyant feel to the sale and many of the items reached good prices. A particular highflyer was an American black walnut late 19th Century chest of five drawers - Amberg's Patent - to hold A4 sheets, which reached £400. An interesting 19th Century cast iron caravan stove on three legs with ornate pierced hob cover, sliding doors to front with its fire bricks sold for £380.00. The Enamel signs did well considering they were not that special and basic garden things such as forks, spades, saws and rollers all sold. The two examples of stained glass which were auctioned were not very old but still made a respectable £260 for the four paneled piece and £170 for a 1950's single panel piece. The fair ground items did not fair as well as I thought they would, a ten panel fairground hoopla stall complete with roof tilt and night boards only managed to reach £360.00. The biggest surprise was the Hunt & Son Ginger Beer two gallon stoneware bottle which way exceeded my estimation as it finally made £280.

We are eagerly awaiting the next sale where we have some fine examples of marble from Kent and the interest surrounding the upcoming Mongers sale is steadily mounting."



Above: Four panels of leaded stained and painted glass, Sold price £260.00


Above: An American black walnut late 19th Century chest of five drawers - Amberg's Patent - to hold A4 sheets, Sold price £400.00


Gaze