Our honeymoon that year was a glimpse of our buying trips to come - we took a mad gamble - and bought an Indian Maharaja’s lacquered green state carriage.  Found under a tree in Brisbane, Charlie just had to have it.  We had to take the wheels off to get it into the shipping container and I filled its sumptuous yellow silk interior with Japanese and Islamic treasures.  

The Daily Mail showed us towing it down the M3 while the Independent photographer was inside the building (above).

Since then, we have filled the year with a series of shows. January meant buying in Miami. In our days supplying Harrods we found a huge range of stock including all sorts of furniture, bronzes, clocks, etc and, for me, wonderful 20^th century cloisonne. 

Staying in Florida for a week’s break in the Keys we would then be ready for setting up our stand at the Palm Beach Show in February.  Although we took our normal wide range of stock, we were always sure to have glass-topped nautical tables as they were so popular.

While with the Palm Beach Show Group we did some New York Shows, at the Armory. The Haughton Fair was most exciting as we sold four magnificent cannon for a substantial figure.  Sets of four are very rare but we do currently have several pairs on our website, including these from the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. 

The spring months of March and April heralded the BADA, Open Art or Chelsea Fairs.  The most memorable of those was the Open Art Fair (see the newsletter for March 2020) which was sadly closed by COVID within hours.  A pity, as we had a very interesting stand with a large selection of bronzes as varied as ‘Dougie’, a calypso singer from Tobago Cays, and a series of Japanese fruit pickers.

Summer used to be our busiest time with both Olympia (top) and Masterpiece at the end of June.  We even managed to do both for two years when they only overlapped for a couple of days.

And finally, September is the month for LAPADA in Berkeley Square.  It is my favourite venue as the marquee allows the trees to grow through some of the stands.  WE WILL BE THERE.  At the moment it will be our only show this year but we are already gathering pieces to take including this exquisite pair of display cabinets. 

Next Show – LAPADA