Antique Furniture Buying – With blue skies, sun and a mild 23 degrees we thought perhaps the plane had landed in the wrong country when we stepped off the plane October 1st, but we were assured that no indeed, we had landed as hoped in the UK. What a blissful way to start a buying trip… and a relief. For our clients that asked to be stuffed into our suitcases… today we could see why.
Our first stop was at the London Decorative Fair, and we were blown away by the clever way in which dealers were pairing old with new. Throwing tradition to the wind, they simply changed the way the pieces were restored and presented and in so doing, modernised beautiful antiques. We thought this antique furniture stand was particularly impressive.
Onto serious trade buying rather than retail the next day and after 7 hours driving and 5 hours actual buying we had sifted through enough furniture to find some lovely little pieces, as well as a few thoroughly outrageous ones. One such example was this 19th century hand decorated pair of carved horses, possibly off a merry-go-round but we can’t be entirely sure. There’s just something about the colours and patina of these that we couldn’t resist.
One of our more sensible was this beautiful 19th century French oak bookcase. We’ve been trying to buy this piece for over 5 years and so were thrilled that we could finally say it was ours. The quality of the carving on the front and the serpentine shelves are particularly lovely and I just love how you can see through the carving and glass all over.
This awesome quality desk with matching bookcase also showed its face a few days in, as well as this beautiful quality oak parquetry dining.
No one said we couldn’t have any fun though and a bit of sightseeing has rounded off a so far very successful trip. On that note, thought we’d leave you with a couple of other cute and curious finds to dream over, table, gates and pair of parcel gilt pelmets.. Until our next antique furniture buying trip, stay tuned.
