Dealer's Diary» It Was a Finer Fair..The Demise of the West Country Potlatch or a Report on the 25th Bath Decorative Fair
This year's fair the 25th we once again in keeping with recent years managed to put together what nobody could deny was a fantastic and very affordable selection of period and original painted pine and country furniture and decorative items, many of which items we had been holding in our reserve stock and working on not for months but years. These included a rare Welsh pine dresser with small spindled cupboards (bought 5 yrs ago from a dealer and worked on slowly ever since), a magnificent panelled Irish Georgian cupboard that was dry scraped to green but not being satisfied with that we scraped again to its first pale cream colour, a true labour of love winning us admiration in consolation for the small profit achieved when inevitably it sold.
We normally bring a good horse or good folk art carved figure or animal to front up the stand, this year we had a large carousel horse (some debate from experts over whether it was by Anderson or Savage - and these people are the world experts so i wouldn't want to call it) and we also had a carved zebra not of great age but nicely distressed and a decorative winner. In addition we had a large and a really decorative original painted candleabra/cross that came from a private collection and is said to be from either Ireland or Spain. Pieces that never made it to the fair owing to time or other reasons include a 17th century carved horse in fruitwood and original paint and a collection of carved birds including hoopoe, cuckoo, owls, more of which later.
Vintage signage is popular as interior decoration nowadays and we brought an old boat sign, "Speedwell", dry scraped to its early 20th century colours as well as 12 old zinc shop sign letters that spelled "Lodestar", amongst other things, but lodestar was my favourite given that here was an exhibition aimed above all to inspire and lift the heart.
Another rare trade sign offering was a carved head, bought some months before from a French dealer, who said it was American, and it does have an American feel, seemingly depicting a black American face with shirt and tie, maybe it is from a barber's shop or milliner's and with the feel of the southern states black folk art tradition.
We sell many benches, especially European ones, and the pick of the last season's finds was a wonderful neo-classical Biedermeier pine bench, an original piece from the Hapsburg times, dry scraped to its traces of pale stone and white and offered for less than a £1000 - a far cry from the £2500 trade price i was recently given on a Swedish classical bench which evidently had a number of minor repairs and replacements. This current item had a trip out to Bath and now is back home again gracing our showroom.
This year we sold well, we loaded some of the new items onto the website and made them available from 4pm on the opening day and this helped, but it was not a bumper year, there were notable absentees and for once the famous Bath 'rush to buy' did not happen.
For years the Bath Fair trade day has been a ritual observance marking the arrival of Spring, in which the hoard stirred up by the alpha-dealers in their tribal colours at the head of the queue charge the gates at the appointed hour, performing a mock ravishment of the country dealers stock, making away with historic treasures in exchange for large amounts of fiat currency which the country dealers then take back to their villages (having first given their portion to the cult leader or fair organiser) thus ensuring the re-fertilisation of the antique lands for another year.
As anthropologists of North West Native American culture will tell you the core identity and on-going fruitfulness of such exchange ceremonies (or of the potlatch as it was called) depended on the maintenance of a true spirit of giving, in this case the elite visitors will make the yearly trip down from the mountains so long as the West coasters have enough stock of best salmon, cow hide and copper ornament put aside and at festival prices.
On reflection, and with that little bit of tongue in cheek removed, the finer look of the Fair this year, the presence of Scandinavian furniture beautiful but appealing mainly to the private buyer, a large section of London decorators with their smarter sassier look and the absence of some of the bigger regional country dealers for whom the Fair is known made it inevitable that for London frequenting traders the journey may have appeared to be less than essential. Rumour has it that next year there will be a concerted effort to consult ye olde book of Coleman and return to roots!
In the meantime our showroom is well stocked with goods "going for a song" and there are choice pieces only just coming out of the workshop too, so right now it's well worth a trip, there's fresh coffee and you can chew the cud over a peace pipe.