Reclaimed water garden at Salvo Fair

Above: A quick tour around V & V Reclamation, Hertford, showing some of the elements they will be bringing for their reclaimed water garden at Salvo Fair, Knebworth, this year.

Knebworth, Hertfordshire UK - WHAT do Harrod's Dispensary, Lord Snowdon's London Zoo Aviary, and Paternoster Square next to St Paul's Cathedral have in common? The answer is that pieces of them will appear on V & V Reclamation's spectacular reclaimed water garden at this year's Salvo Fair at Knebworth.

The garden will be set out in the formal neobeauxarts style, paved with grass and bordered by reclaimed flagstones. The front of the stand will be flanked by ten circular exposed aggregate planters from Stevenage town centre, turned into pools with small pink Aberdeen granite obelisks alternating with riven Liscannor stone left over from last year's Chelsea Flower Show.

A sentry box from Whitechapel, a communal washing trough from Cheshire, a post office pillar box from Mortlake (finish of the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race), carved stonework from St Thomas Hospital and a sixteen foot high decorative cast iron column topped by a statue will set off the enclosing walls, seating and plants. It should be a delight.

Everything will be for sale, with 50 businesses and 500 tonnes of stock covering 5 acres of Knebworth's beautiful deer park, so come along for a day of browsing and buying, with some inspiring too.

Salvo Fair, Sat 30 Jun and Sun 1 Jul 2007, Knebworth House, Hertfordshire. By car to J7 A1(M). By train to Stevenage, then a 10 min taxi ride. TRADE DAY: Fri 29 Jun. Web www.salvo-fair.com

Salvo Fair

Lassco open Three Pigeons outpost

Milton Common, Oxfordshire UK - LONDON Architectural Salvage & Supply Co Ltd, aka Lassco, having spent the last few years repositioning itself in Ropewalk Bermondsey and Brunswick House Vauxhall, south of the Thames, has finally left the former church of St Michael's, Shoreditch, in the heart of City of London, and opened a former pub called The Three Pigeons just off junction seven of the M40 in Oxfordshire.

The ground floor is a warren of decorative and architectural antiques, while oustide in the grounds is a display or old and new garden ornament. The day I was there Thames Valley Antique Dealers Association had organised a swap shop in the Three Pigeons' car park, a fish and chip van was providing lunch, music was blaring out and everyone was in good cheer. It is early days yet, but both Anthony Reeves, the manager, and Adrian Amos, the empresario, seemed well pleased with their new baby.

St Michael's church just off Commercial Road, Shoreditch, which had been Lassco's original base from 1977 has now been taken over completely by Geoff Westland and rebranded Westland London to become London's principal antique fireplace showrooms.

Lassco
Westland London


The last shot of the mini-video above shows a pile of green-painted doors from the cells of Clerkenwell Prison, which was used for Victorian Britain's political dissidents. The music is taken from Balm in Gilead by Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-1977) at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival.

Reclaimed sculpture tornado in Teesside

Alex Driver's sketch for Reclaimed Materials Tornado

Stockton, Teesside UK - ALEX Driver of Atkins Plc, the giant construction services group, is hoping to drum up enthusiasm for a sculpture he has designed called Reclaimed Materials Tornado which he would like to build on a roundabout in Stockton. He was at the recent formation meeting for a reusable materials centre there.

If you want more info or wish to make a contribution, get him via his blog at Reclaimed Roundabout.

eBay breaches own rules on theft and ivory

USA and UK - EBAY is accused by the International Fund for Animal Welfare in a report called Bidding for Extinction of allowing the sale of ivory necklaces without documentation to prove they're being offered legally. "An investigation of 2,275 ivory listings during seven days in February - which examined eBay Inc. sites in the United States, Britain, China, and other countries - found laws were not being rigorously enforced," according to MSNBC News Services. "More than 90 percent of listings were found to violate eBay's own wildlife policies - designed to stop trading in endangered animals, the group claims. On eBay's British site, 10 of 424 ivory listings were found to be compliant."

eBay is also criticised for allowing the sale of stolen goods by shoplifters, says the Daily Mail. "House of Fraser, River Island, Asda and other retailers met the company and asked it to share intelligence on suspect sellers," the Mail says. "The retailers demanded that eBay ban the sale of credit notes and vouchers sold by high street stores. Shoplifters return stolen goods and exchange them for vouchers."

MSN News

Daily Mail

May auctions and fairs

UK - THOS Wm Gaze & Sons in Diss, Norfolk, sale of architectural salvage and statuary will be held at 10am on 19th May, run by expert in charge Carl Willows, and this time round has a fine Arts & Crafts oak porch (est £200) among the 1,000 or so lots.

Sotheby's Billingshurst is apparently going to be turned into luxury flats and houses but before that it will host a spring sale on 22nd May of antique garden ornament, fossils and modern sculpture, and this time four olive trees in wood planters (est £4k).

Christie's South Kensington's Toby Woolley will sell a load of garden and architectural items collected by Mike Roberts on 23rd May, including terracotta, statuary, a large number of lanterns, and several fireplaces. The top ranked lot is a pair of Coade ovoid urn finials (est £20k).

Drewette Neate have a garden section at the Csaky house sale in Stockbridge, Hampshire, on 22nd May. Fleury Antiques, who have had a year's worth of sales, are now advertising a clearance sale on 15th and 16th May in Cahir, Co Tipperary, of decorative antiques probably including some architectural and garden. David Erquhart of Posterity in Herefordshire is having his annual auction on 20th May at 12.30pm. Watsons in Heathfield, East Sussex is holding a 500 lot sale of garden and architectural salvage and repro on 18th May. As if this is not enough, Swinderby is on 29th and 30th May, followed by Newark on 31st May and 1st June.

Sotheby's Amsterdam will be holding its annual (is it annual?) Piet Jonkers sale of antique garden ornament on 30th May. Described in the catalogue as 'The Piet Jonker Collection' as if it were the disposal of a lifetime's gathering up of antiques, the sale is a preferred way of trading for an antique dealer. These types of sale are becoming more common, as in 'The Property of Michael Roberts' at Christie's above, so perhaps it would be fairer if their periodicity, and the regular relationship between auction house and dealer were noted somewhere in the catalogue, in case someone not in the know obtained the wrong impression. Would it be fairer to call them a 'Dealer Sale'? That may make them sound slightly downmarket and mercenary which could put off high-spending customers. The trouble is that 'dealer sale' is also used to describe a sale at a trade fair for the benefit of dealers.

After a long absence (who knows what happened to Kevin Scott) Bonhams have decided to hold a garden sale on 6th June and an architectural sale on 21st July in Henley.

Chelsea Flower Show is being held from 22nd to 26th May and will feature, among others no doubt, Mike Corbett of Triton UK's collection of unique and replica garden ornament, Ed Holloway unrolling the agos range, Alex Puddy with the antique and new garden ornament of Architectural Heritage, Bulbeck and H. Crowther. Not sure if Hughie Powell and Cotswold Decorative Ironwork will be there this year.

Last but not least, LASSCO Three Pigeons is holding a dealer swap shop sponsored by TVADA but open to all-comers in the car park of its new ex-pub premises at Milton Common in Oxfordshire on Friday 18th May from 12pm to 3pm.

Brief reports or photos (please ask permission) would be appreciated of all events listed if anyone can be bothered.

Gaze auctions and other paying advertisers are listed on the
Salvo Auction & Event Calendar

Serbian smokehouse at this year's Salvo Fair

Above: Some typical Serbian smokehouses looking for new owners before they fall down, or get demolished in the drive for modernisation.

Knebworth, Hertfordshire UK - ANDY Triplow of salvage company Architectural Treasures in Kent is hoping to bring either parts of, or a complete, Serbian smokehouse to this year's Salvo Fair at Knebworth, Sat 30 Jun - Sun 1 Jul.

These rustic uncared for rural buildings, many of which have already fallen into decay, are being rescued, either as intact pieces or for their reclaimable oak. Is there anyone ambitious enough to want somewhere to smoke their cheese and sausages (is that allowed in suburban Isleworth?) or perhaps a Serbian ex-pat hankering after a bit of the old country in which they can retreat from the turmoil of the twentieth century.

The smokehouses are mainly built from hundred-year-old thick oak planking - which can make a product with its own merits either as resawn flooring or for use in building reclaimed oak furniture, windows and doors, or other building elements.

Andy Triplow said, "I am not sure whether we will have time to get a complete smokehouse to Knebworth, but if we don't, we will have some Serbian smoked sausage, maybe some elements from a smokehouse, and photos. We would be happy to talk to potential buyers of either complete buildings or reclaimed Serbian oak on our stand at the show. We will also be there on the trade day on Friday 29 June in case anyone wants a longer more serious chat. We hope to have one erected in our Smarsden yard later this year."

Contact Architectural Treasures telephone 01233 813355 http://www.architecturaltreasures.co.uk

James Athenian Stuart at the V&A

Engraving and detail: The Tower of the Winds, Athens, built in 50BC, engraving from Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens 1762, octagonal stone town weather station incorporating a water clock, weathervane in the form of the god Triton, sundials, and depictions of eight wind gods (detail). This engraving was the inspiration for many Greek Revival buildings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. [Pic Steedman




Above: The Temple of the Winds, Mount Stewart, Co. Down by James Stuart, 1782-3, plasterwork by William Fitzgerald, marquetry floor by John Ferguson, one of Stuart's last garden buildings, for Robert Stewart, later 1st Marquis of Londonderry. [Photo: National Trust © NTPL


Below: Fabulous gilt and black metal open-backed vase, for an unknown use at Kedleston Hall, Derby, possibly a plate warmer, probably by James Stuart 1760, made by Diederich Nicolaus Anderson. Patinated copper, with applied ormolu ornament and stained wood base [Photo: National Trust © NTPL / Bruce White and Nadia Mackenzie]



London UK - THE Victoria and Albert Museum in London is showing a New York exhibition organised by Susan Soros on the artist, architect and designer James Athenian Stuart, 1713-1788. The free exhibition is on until 24 June. There is a Greek revival study day on 9 June with talks by Susan Soros, Charles Hind on Greek models, Julius Bryant on Stuart and Adam: Greek v Roman, and Frances Collard on Thomas Hope, and a video about Stuart's interiors at Spencer House in London.

This exhibition covers Stuart's work documenting the ruins of Athens in 1750-1753 and when he got back to England publishing a four volume set of the Antiquities of Athens, of which the first volume appeared in 1762 to huge acclaim but the final volume did not appear until 1816 long after Stuart had died.

In short, he was born into a poor London family, worked as a fan painter, and then spent 10 years travelling, walked from London to Rome making a living painting portraits. In Rome he was adopted by the dilletanti and escorted tourists such as Gavin Hamilton and Lord Burlington to the newly discovered remains of Pompeii at Naples. He then struck out for Athens with architect Nicholas Revett, was nearly murdered in Turkey, and was employed as an army campaign engineer by the Queen of Hungary. On his return he obtained a sinecure restoring the Greenwich hospital which had been damaged by fire, and undertook a few commissions to decorate houses and gardens, not many of which survive.

The Greek revival was tacked on to the neo-Palladian Georgian architectural style, represented in particular by the Doric - considered both in Greek and Georgian times to be a masculine style compared to female Ionic and youthful Corinthian. The iconography of the Greek revival, if there was one, is not touched upon at this exhibition. Greek art epitomized what Georgians such as Alexander Pope thought were the antique qualities of calm, simplicity and noble grandeur.

A criticism of this exhibition could be that it does not delve into Greek revival iconography, specifically Stuart's interpretation, but instead concentrates on patronage and an art-for-arts-sake theme, which seems out of place, more akin to the Aesthetic movement decades later. Susan Soros, founded the Bard Decorative Arts Centre in New York, and knows all about patronage. Her billionaire ex-husband George Soros is a great patron. (He also famously made $10 billion out of British taxpayers by currency speculation during the ERM debacle in 1992.)

The art movement that grew out of the publication of Stuart's books, or perhaps whose books were a reflection of an already growing awareness, was neoclassicism. Neoclassicism was art of an ideal. Artists did not copy it in lifeless reproduction, but imbued with its essence created new classically-inspired works. The high artistic standards meant that art was generally not mediocre, and gaffes of taste and failures of craftsmanship are not common neoclassical failings. Novelty, improvisation, self-expression, and blinding inspiration are not neoclassical virtues; neoclassicism exhibits perfect control of an idiom.

It is easy to forget that Stuart, whose influence stretched well into the nineteenth century, was using baroque craftspeople. He used Peter Scheemakers, father and son, for carving his chimneypieces, baroque and rococo stuccadores, and Georgian carpenters and masons. Mistakes were made, including the pediment under pediment or portico, which is baroque not neoclassical, but the exhibition glosses over these.

No event that ever occurred in the history of architecture in England, and thence throughout all Europe, produced so sudden, decided and beneficial effect as did the works of James Stuart. It surprised and delighted the learned and admirers of art; the majestic grandeur and simplicity of form exhibited in the general outline of its beautiful temples, and the exquisite purity and elegance of detail shown in all the profiles of his mouldings fascinated the eye of taste. The natural form proved how pure was the taste of the Athenians . . . unlike the Romans, there were no pediments under pediments, or under porticoes, or in the interior of buildings - to which absurdities the Romans were so partial, as to draw down the rebuke of Cicero, that his countrymen were so fond of pediments, that if they had to erect a temple in Olympus they would cover it with a roof and decorate it with pediments [Architects Journal 1847]

James Athenian Stuart at the V&A




Whoops . . . pediments under a pediment at Lichfield House, 15 St James's Square, London, by James Stuart 1764-6, built for Thomas Anson, Earl of Lichfield. Stuart called the capitals on the facade 'the greatest grace and ornament of the building'. They were copies of the capitals of the portico of Minerva Polias in Athens. This was the first time the Greek Ionic order had been used in a London building.