Here’s more on our Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer theme with some behind the scenes ‘gossip’ on the making of the digital film trail for S.J. Phillips, the world famous antique silver dealers, at Preston Park Museum, Stockton-on-Tees – here’s the finished film on the YoD website.
The films we made at Preston Park Museum were amongst the most complicated of all five museum digital film trails. Mainly because the Year of the Dealer project took so long to complete that by the time we launched all the films in June 2026 Preston Park Museum had undergone a major refurbishment of its displays. As a consequence, six of the ten objects we focused on in the films had been moved to museum storage and were no longer on display. This meant that we couldn’t use floorplans to locate the objects for viewers that wished to go to see the objects in real life at the museums (as we did in the other four museums) – you may have noticed that there are no floorplans in the Preston Park Museum digital film trails?
Preston Park Museum floor plan prior to major refurbishment. Image, Preston Park Museum.
As a result of the refurbishment at Preston Park Museum we also decided we should only use the photographs we took of the interior displays at Preston Park prior to refurbishment in a very limited way so as not to confuse the viewers watching the films, (and any subsequent museum visitors).
Display at Preston Park Museum, now no longer in the galleries at the museum. Image, Year of the Dealer project and Preston Park Museum 2026
This photograph (above) for example, was initially going to feature prominently in the main introductory film for Preston Park Museum, as well as in the S. J. Phillips and Law, Foulsham & Cole films, but we felt we couldn’t really highlight the image as much as we initially planned, due to the display being remodelled during the Preston Park Museum refurbishment.
The photograph shows the silver powder flask highlighted in the S. J. Phillips film (top middle) as well as the small 18th century snuff box featured in the Law, Foulsham & Cole film at Preston Park Museum (righthand side, 3rd row down, the yellow coloured oval box) – both objects are now in storage at Preston Park Museum along with the majority of the other objects on display in the glass case and we only used close-up versions of the photograph in the S.J. Phillips and Law, Foulsham & Cole films.
This small detail is hardly noticeable in the actual films of course, but it reminded us a lot about how long the project took to complete and how complicated projects can be – but also how important it is to be flexible when working with partners!
Here’s more behind the scenes ‘gossip’ on the Year of the Dealer films – this time the Charles Duveen (C. J. Charles) film at Lady Lever Art Gallery – you can see the film here
We were fortunate in this film that Russell Fielding, one of the visitor assistants at Lady Lever Art Gallery who introduced the suite of antique Italian furniture, was also an enthusiastic amateur actor – his enunciation in his introduction to the suite is fantastic! Russell sadly is no longer working at Lady Lever Art Gallery – perhaps he is treading the boards somewhere?
Screenshot from The Year of the Dealer film at Lady Lever Art Gallery with Russell Fielding. Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds.
There were numerous edits to the script for the Charles Duveen film at Lady Lever Art Gallery – we had to cut some sections to keep to our sub-4 minute rule. So a section (lasting about 35 seconds) telling the story about the early history of the Duveen dynasty of antique dealers (the family is of Dutch Jewish extraction, but started out in Britain in Hull of the east coast of England in the 1840s) was cut. As was a short section (about 40 seconds) on the significance of the close relationships between collectors and networks of antique dealers – this was illustrated in the image of C. J. Charles’ invoice for the suite of Italian furniture (see below – the image of the invoice was actually included in the film).
Invoice from C.J. Charles for suite of Italian furniture to Lord Leverhulme, 19th Sept 1919. Courtesy of Lady Lever Art Gallery archives.
The handwritten notes on the invoice illustrate the tightly grouped network of London antique dealers that Lord Leverhulme used as key suppliers for his antique collecting activities. Moss Harris & Sons were one of Leverhulme’s most trusted antique dealers and Leverhulme regularly acquired antiques from Moss Harris’ Oxford Street shop. One of the the handwritten pencil notes on the invoice indicate that the suite acquired from C. Charles was located at ‘Mr. Charles’ warehouse, 25 Woodstock Street, Oxford Street‘ (which was just off Oxford Street and New Bond Street near to Charles’ shop in Brook Street). Another note (in pen) states ‘To be removed to M. Harris & Sons 44 New Oxford Street WC1‘. A shipment by Moss Harris’s van (see below) would be the most efficient way of getting antiques from various London antique dealers to Leverhulme’s various houses.
M. Harris & Sons delivery van, c.1935. Photograph courtesy of John Hill.
Unfortunately, we could not fit either of these fascinating details into the script and audio for the C. Charles film at Lady Lever Art Gallery, but we did get this lovely image of M. Harris van in one of the films focused on M. Harris & Sons at Lady Lever Art Gallery though!
See next week for more Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer
Here’s some more behind the scenes ‘gossip’ from The Year of the Dealer – this one is on the making of the digital film trail at Temple Newsam for H. Blairman & Sons sale of the famous library desk made in c.1770 by Thomas Chippendale for Harewood House – here’s the finished film on the YoD website
This was quite a complicated film to make as we had to go to London to create a filmed interview with Martin Levy (current owner/director of H. Blairman & Sons) for the Temple Newsam film; we also used extracts from the interview with Martin in the other H. Blairman & Sons films for Bowes Museum and V&A.
We spent quite a lot of time at Temple Newsam working with the amazing front of house team and Adam Toole, curator, Temple Newsam and Decorative Art, making the introductory pieces to camera and photographing the desk etc. It was a lot of work, but we had a lot of fun too.
Viewers may notice when you watch all the films there is a repetitive rhythm to the piece to camera that introduces each of the museum objects – we wanted ‘antique’ and ‘antique dealer’ to be constant phrases in all the introductory pieces in all the films to emphasize these key ideas throughout the project. But this ‘script’ was often surprisingly easy to trip up on – here’s Adrian Thompson, one of the visitor assistants at Temple Newsam, trying to nail his introduction to the Harewood House library desk – Adrian very generously agreed to let us all see one of his (multiple) attempts!…many thanks to Adrian for allowing us to show this.
Adrian Thompson, Visitor Assistant at Temple Newsam, introduces the Harewood House library desk.
Like in many of the other films, there were numerous images/photographs that we could have used in creating the films but we could not really find the space in the time limits we had placed on the length of the films. In the Temple Newsam H. Blairman & Sons film we had photographs of the various reports on the sale of the desk in national and local newspapers (the sale of the desk featured in reports in The Guardian (Sept 1965) and thee Yorkshire Post (Nov 1965) and several others), but could not find space for the images. We also thought about including a few images of the Christie’s auction catalogue (1st July 1965) – (see below) but could not find space for this in the film without the images appearing and disappearing too rapidly. The catalogue is interesting though, as it highlights the importance of the desk – it had a colour photo fold out of the desk as the frontispiece.
Christie’s auction catalogue, 1st July 1965. Image, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
There were some other ideas we tested in the drafts for the film – one of which was that we might include speech bubbles to coincide with the avatar’s audio (see below – this is what the Mo avatar says in the script). This looked so bad though, so we decided to drop it; plus all the films have hard of hearing subtitles embedded as part of the software which viewers can turn on if they need to.
One of the other things that we noticed in the early drafts of the Temple Newsam YoD film was that in the first drafts of this shot (above) of the ‘Gothic Room’ at Temple Newsam viewers could see Patrick (the film maker) taking the film reflected in the cheval mirror at the back of the room on the left side – we could not film this all over again as it would mean having to book time to go to Temple Newsam again…so Patrick rather cleverly cut and pasted a reflection of what could be seem in the mirror if we were not there into this section of the film…..the devil is in the detail!
We’ll have another Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer next week.
Our first in this new series of Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer is on one of the films at the V&A South Kensington – Frank Partridge & Sons and The Great Bed of Ware – here’s the film
This film is about average in terms of the length of all the YoD films at films at 3 minutes 40 seconds, but it was planned to be a bit longer at nearly 5 minutes. This was too long for a trail; we thought that about 4 minutes was the longest we should make the films – this was to factor in that some viewers may watch the films on their phone in front of the object in the museum – so we cut quite a lot of information about the more recent history of Frank Partridge & Sons out of the film and moved that information to the Frank Partridge films at The Bowes Museum, Preston Park Museum, Temple Newsam, and Lady Lever Art Gallery (Partridge is the only dealer represented in all 5 museum film trails). We edited the script to reduce the running time of the V&A Partridge film; there were also too many images as well, which meant they appeared and disappeared on screen too rapidly, so we removed some of the images to allow the images that remained a little more time on screen.
One of the images we removed was this photograph of the Great Bed of Ware at Frank Partridge’s shop at 26 King Street, St. James’s in London in 1931 (see below). The photograph shows a man kneeling in front of the bed – perhaps this is Frank Partridge, but we couldn’t be sure and as we had other images of the bed in Partridge’s shop we included those instead.
The Great Bed of Ware at Frank Partridge’s antique shop in London in 1931. Image from The Sphere, July 25th 1931.
We also wondered about telling more of the story about the Great Bed of Ware – it has a long history, including being illustrated in Samuel Meyrick and Henry Shaw Specimens of Ancient Furniture (1836) (see below), one of the earliest depictions of the bed. But we really wanted to focus on the dealer, Frank Partridge, so decided not to include a more fulsome history of the bed. Such information is more commonly highlighted when the Great Bed of Ware is discussed anyway, and is available at the V&A and elsewhere.
The Great Bed of Ware, Samuel Meyrick and Henry Shaw, Specimens of Ancient Furniture (1836), plate 37.
One of the other changes we made was the representation of the house (the equivalent of the price of the antique to the price of a house at the time the antique was acquired by the museum is the common theme throughout all the YoD films) – we didn’t like the first attempt…the house looked too modern and a bit too ‘American’ (see below) (not that we have anything against Americans!), so we swapped the image for the more appropriate looking 1930s house (the bed was sold to the V&A in 1931) in the final version of the Frank Partridge & Sons digital film trial. We also decided that all the images of houses in the films should be images of houses dating from around the time that the dealer sold the object (the antique) to the respective museum, rather than this generic house image (below).
There were several other changes and edits to the film. I think we must have made at least 6 or 7 versions of each of the YoD films before we settled on the final versions – so that’s 50 films x 7…and enormous amount of work! For the V&A Partridge film one thing we debated about for a while was the use of what I called ‘the Monty Python Hand’ as a way of highlighting the carved initials ‘F.P.’ in the frame of the bed (see below).
We tried various ways of highlighting the initials but we quite liked the quirky-ness of the Victorian hand – we used the hand in some of the other YoD films too. Patrick Bannon, who made all the films for us, also voiced the script for the extract from Frank Partridge’s memoirs in the V&A Partridge film – Partridge was originally from Hertfordshire, rather than the Wirral though (where Patrick is from)…so a bit of artistic license (as well as questions of economy) was needed!
See next week for more Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer 2.
As part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trails launch (see previous post), we are going to post some weekly updates for those following and watching the Year of the Dealer films. As you may know, there are 50 antiques highlighted in the Year of the Dealer films, so that’s just under one per week for the full year of the Year of the Dealer.
And so, each week we are going to reveal some of the stories, images, ideas for each of the film- things that never made the ‘cut’ or that we could not include for various reasons – a kind of behind the scenes look at the making of the Year of the Dealer.
In anticipation of that, here is a preliminary to the first of the YoD posts – we show here (below) Patrick Bannon, who is a photographer and film maker in Yorkshire and was the camera man for all the Year of the Dealer films. Here’s Patrick at Lady Lever Art Gallery filming our ‘What is an Antique?’ film with Fiona Slattery Clark, Curator of Decorative Art at National Museums Liverpool.
Patrick Bannon with Fiona Slattery Clark at Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral, filming the Year of the Dealer, ‘What is an Antique?’ film in 2022. Image, Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds.
We will still be posting our usual antique dealer research updates on the Blog too of course, but watch out for the next in our behind the scenes of the Year of the Dealer next week!
After many years of invigorating research and work, the digital film trails for the Year of the Dealer project are finally launched today, Thursday 11th June!
As many of our readers will know, The Year of the Dealer is a project that began 4 or 5 years ago, and it’s taken an enormous effort, working with a brilliant team at the University of Leeds and colleagues at our 5 Year of the Dealer collaborating partner museums – The Bowes Museum, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Preston Park Museum, Temple Newsam, and the V&A South Kensington – to finally launch the digital film trails.
You can watch all the films here – on the Year of the Dealer main project website, but also on all five partner museum websites too – we hope you enjoy watching the films – but you can also go and see the antiques highlighted in the films at each of our five partner museums.
Focusing on ten familiar objects at each of the five museums, the films highlight how some of our most prized treasures ended up in collections and reveal their hidden histories as ‘antiques’. Guided by two friendly avatars, Mark and Mo (see below) – with introductions by respective museum directors, curators and collections officers – 50 antiques and over 40 antique dealer histories are explored.
Mark and Mo – the avatar guides in the Year of the Dealer digital film trails. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds.
The films reveal the fascinating stories of the dealers who sold the antiques to the museums – including Edgar Gorer, a leading specialist in antique Chinese porcelain, who sadly perished in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915; and antique dealer Frank Partridge, who miraculously survived the same disaster.
Several films highlight the important role that women have played in the history of antique dealing. One features an antique lace collar on display at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, originally from the collection of Jane Clarke, one of the most prominent antique dealers of the 19th century (see below).
17th century Lace Collar, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle. Image, The Year of the Dealer Project, University of Leeds & The Bowes Museum.
The Year of the Dealer project draws together several years of research, including museum and dealers’ archives, auction catalogue records and oral history interviews, to bring these previously little-known stories to life.
Other antiques in the digital film trails include the important library table, made by Thomas Chippendale in the 1770s for Harewood House in Yorkshire, sold to Temple Newsam, Leeds in 1964 by H. Blairman & Sons for a world record price of 41,000 guineas (see below);
The Harewood Library Desk, c.1770, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at Temple Newsam, Leeds. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds & Temple Newsam, Leeds Museums & Galleries.
A rare pair of 17th century Chinese ‘Prunus’ pattern jars, sold by the special dealer in Chinese Works of Art Edgar Gorer to the collector William Hesketh Lever in 1911 for the spectacular sum of £6,500 (equivalent to as much as £3.8 million at the time) and now at Lady Lever Art Gallery (see below).
A pair of Chinese 17th century ‘prunus’ jars, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at Lady Lever Art Gallery. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds & Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight.
The Bowes Museum’s famous 18th century silver swan automaton, acquired by John and Josephine Bowes from the dealers Briquet and Samper of Paris in 1872 for about £200 (see below).
18th century silver swan automaton, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds & The Bowes Museum.
The Great Bed of Ware, sold by the antique dealer Frank Partridge to the V&A Museum in 1931 for £4,060 (see below).
The Great Bed of Ware, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at the V&A South Kensington. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds & V&A South Kensington.
There are also some much more humble objects sold by antique dealers to museums, such as this toy Noah’s Ark c.1900, sold to Preston Park Museum, Stockton, in 1969 by Caedmon Antiques of Whitby for a few pounds (see below).
Toy Noah’s Ark, c.1900, part of the Year of the Dealer digital film trail at Preston Park Museum, Stockton. Image, The Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds & Preston Park Museum, Stockton.
We hope you enjoy the Year of the Dealer films, and that it will encourage you to think further about the role that antique dealers have played in the development of collections.
Some exciting news (I hope!) – the final part of The Year of the Dealer project is finally ready for launch. It’s been an absolutely mammoth task, spanning the last few years, creating the digital film trails, but we are very nearly ready to press the button and make the project ‘live’. We are aiming to press the launch button in June – we’re just working with our fantastic partner museums to make sure everything lines up and we’ll be good to go!
The Year of the Dealer project has involved multiple outputs over the last few years, including a film (Quinneys 2021), workshops and events, and an art-film ‘Echo’ – you can read all about the project on the Antique Dealer Research Project website
Year of the Dealer project website 2026.
The Year of the Dealer digital trails is the final part of the (current) project and has involved creating 50 short digital trails in collaboration with 5 of the UK’s leading museums – The Bowes Museum, The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Preston Park Museum, Temple Newsam, and the V&A Museum. We have picked 10 objects at each museum and told the stories of the antique dealers behind the objects. All 57 digital films (there are also 7 introductory and supplementary films) will go ‘live’ in a couple of weeks and will be live for a year, to make 2026-2027 The Year of the Dealer!
To whet your appetite, here’s a promotional film we have made, highlighting the Year of the Dealer project (see below).
Do watch out for the Year of the Dealer when it launches – and we will be posting updates on the Antique Dealer Research blog about the Year of the Dealer digital films and associated events throughout the coming year.
We were very sad indeed to hear that Tony Lumb, of the very well-known antique dealers Charles Lumb & Sons of Harrogate, Yorkshire, passed away over the Christmas period. Tony, together with his wife Mary, was a great supporter of the Antique Dealers Research Project at the University of Leeds – in fact we conducted an oral history interview with Tony and Mary (and James Lomax, former curator at Temple Newsam, Leeds) back in 2014 and we have very fond memories of Tony and Mary – they both came along to the premier of our film of the play ‘Quinneys’ (1915) which we made in 2021, screened at York Picture House in November 2021.
Tony Lumb at home in Knaresborough, 2014. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony was born in 1935 and joined his family antique dealing business, Charles Lumb & Sons, in 1956 after completing his National Service. The business had been started by Tony’s grandfather, Charles Lumb (1878-1963), who was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire in 1878 and trained as a cabinetmaker; he established Charles Lumb & Sons as antique dealers in Harrogate in 1907. Below is a photograph of one of the early business premises of Charles Lumb, a small 19th century workshop where Charles Lumb traded from just after the end of the First World War in 1918 or 1919 – the photograph is from the 1980s, when Charles Lumb & Sons still owned the property and used it as a store for their stock of antiques.
Charles Lumb & Sons, Montpellier Street/Montpellier Mews, Harrogate; shop/workshop opened in about 1918/19. Photograph courtesy of Tony and Mary Lumb.
Charles Lumb opened a shop in Swan Road in Harrogate in the early 1920s, before moving to larger premises in Montpellier Street, Harrogate in the 1930s. Below is an advertisement produced by Charles Lumb & Sons in 1938, trading from their Montpellier Street address.
Charles Lumb & Sons, advertisement, Apollo, August 1938. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony’s father, Frank Lumb and his uncle Reg, together with Tony, ran the antique business after Charles Lumb died in 1963. By then they had moved the business, opening a new shop at 34 Montpellier Parade, Harrogate in 1947, and were one of the most important antique dealers in the UK. Below is a photograph of Charles Lumb’s shop at Montpellier Parade in 1954, just a couple of years before Tony Lumb joined the business in 1956.
Charles Lumb & Sons, Montpellier Parade shop interior, 1954. Photograph courtesy of Tony and Mary Lumb.
When Reg Lumb died in 1976 Frank, with Tony and Mary, continued to run the antique dealing business; Frank Lumb was working in the antique shop until his early 90s; he died aged 97 in 1993. Tony and Mary finally closed Charles Lumb & Sons in 2012.
Mary and Tony Lumb, 2014. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Tony served on the Council of the British Antique Dealers Association (BADA) in the 1970s, and served as Vice President of the BADA during the early 1980s. He was always interested in the developments of the Antique Dealers Research Project at the University of Leeds, and were so sorry to hear that he had passed away. We were particularly sorry that Tony will not see the launch of the Year of the Dealer project (which launches on 1st March 2026) – Charles Lumb & Sons are the subject of one of the ‘dealer trails’ films at Temple Newsam, the country house museum near Leeds. This wonderful 18th century Dutch giltwood chandelier (see below) is featured in the short film focused on Charles Lumb & Sons – (the chandelier was sold to Temple Newsam by Charles Lumb & Sons in 1950, for £159 and 10 shillings).
18th century Dutch giltwood chandelier at Temple Newsam, Leeds. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds and Leeds Museums & Galleries.
We send our sincerest condolences to Mary and the Lumb family.
Our popular theme of Antique Shops Then & Now continues with part IV. This time we look to Scotland and one of the largest antique dealing businesses in Scotland, John Bell of Aberdeen.
Below is John Bell’s shop at 56-58 Bridge Street, Aberdeen in the 1950s.
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1957. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
And here’s the same building in 2026; no longer an antique shop of course, but one can get a sense of the scale of the John Bell business in its heyday – it was an enormous operation, occupying half of the whole building in Bridge Street, over 4 floors.
Bridge Street, Aberdeen, former antique shop of John Bell of Aberdeen, 2026. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project University of Leeds.
Some readers of the Blog may remember the advertisements of John Bell in various magazines; these were a constant presence from the 1920s up until the 1980s. Below is one of their adverts from 1938, when they were trading from their Bridge Street, Aberdeen shop (which they opened in the early 1930s) and at Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. Bell had bought the famous antique dealing business of Robert Lauder in Glasgow in 1938 and their branch at 398 Sauchiehall Street was Lauder’s old shop. John Bell also opened another branch in Braemar in the 1950s, only open during the Spring and Summer, no doubt to key into the Scottish tourist trade.
Advertisement for John Bell antique dealers, Apollo magazine, July 1938. Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
John Bell was established in 1905 and became of the most successful and important antique dealers in Britain. John Bell (1870-1914) sadly died in 1914, and the antique dealing business was continued by his son, W.S. Bell (1898-1973), who was only 16 years old at the time of his father’s death. Here’s W.S. Bell in 1936, around the time he opened the Bridge Street shop.
W.S. Bell, of John Bell of Aberdeen, 1936. Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
William S. Bell expanded the business, creating one of the largest retail, wholesale and export antique dealers in the UK. They also built an extensive export trade with American dealers and collectors, sending vast quantities of antiques to the USA; as well as to the expanding markets for British antiques in Australia and South Africa. Here’s one of the showrooms in John Bell’s shop in Bridge Street in about 1957 (see below).
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1957. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Bell’s shop is packed a range of antiques that would have been attractive to middle class antique collectors and furnishers in the 1950s – 18th century furniture dominated, but as you can see also on display is extensive amounts of antique sliver, as well as antique ceramics and some paintings and tapestries.
One gets a sense of the sheer scale of John Bell’s business in this other image of another showroom in the Bridge Street antique shop (also from the 1950s) – (see below). This showroom looks much more aimed at the wholesale and export markets, with antiques stacked in rows; there’s also earlier antique furniture for sale (mostly 17th and 18th century oak) as well as a much wider range of collectables, suitable for export.
John Bell of Aberdeen, Bridge Street, Aberdeen, c.1958. Image Antiques Yearbook 1957/1958 (Tantivy Press). Photograph Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
John Bell of Aberdeen are the subject of one of the little films in our Project – ‘Sold! The Year of the Dealer’, and we are very excited to announce that the YoD is finally being launched to the public on 1st April 2026. The John Bell antique in the Year of the Dealer films is in the suite of 10 films at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle – it’s an early 19th century bookcase, which was sold to The Bowes Museum by John Bell of Aberdeen in 1962 (so about the time of the photographs of John Bell’s shop) for £195. Here’s the bookcase (see below).
Early 19th century bookcase, sold to The Bowes Museum in 1962 by John Bell of Aberdeen. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project & The Bowes Museum.
The YoD films will soon be available to view – in fact we’re going to do a series of posts on the research blog about the YoD project in the coming weeks – so do keep your eye on the Blog!
A couple of months ago my friend and colleague Diana Davis very kindly sent me a link to a short black & white film of the 1932 Art Treasures Exhibition (thank you Diana!), and which obviously pricked my interest as it is full of objects that were being sold by antique dealers. You can watch the film in YouTube (it’s only 2 minutes 49 seconds long) HERE – the original film is part of the wide range of historic films and TV archives held by British Pathe (link HERE).
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 catalogue, front cover. Photo Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
The Art Treasures Exhibition, held at Christie’s auction rooms, King Street, London, 12th October to 5th November 1932 and organised by The British Antique Dealer’s Association (BADA) is fairly well-known amongst historians and those interested in the history of the art market. The 1932 exhibition followed on the success of the earlier BADA organised exhibition at Grafton Galleries, London in 1928. Both exhibitions prefigured the establishment of the Grosvenor House Antiques Fair (also known as ‘The Antique Dealers’ Fair’) which began in 1934 – (see also some older blog posts on The Grosvenor House Fair etc in January 31st 2021 and April 23rd 2015).
Fortunately, we have a copy of the 1932 Exhibition catalogue, so it’s possible to match up some of the objects in the film to those in the catalogue and find out which dealers are behind the objects, so I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do that!
The film of the 1932 Exhibition is a fascinating period piece from the early 1930s, obviously created as a publicity newsreel for the exhibition. The narrator (unknown), guides the viewer to some of the highlights of the exhibition at the time, telling the background stories of some of the objects offered for sale by various antique dealers, but also offering a visual insight into the displays at the exhibition. Below, for example, is a screenshot of a general panning shot (do watch the YouTube film for effect) of one of the stands which appears to have a mixture of dealers’ objects – the large pair of urns are certainly item No.237 in the catalogue, ‘A pair of satinwood knife boxes, c.1790, originally made for Lord Northesk’ (the family seat is Ethie Castle, near Arbroath) and offered by the antique dealer Rice & Christy, Wigmore Street, London; the tapestry behind looks like it is No.285 ‘A Beauvais Tapestry, c.1790’, offered by The Spanish Art Gallery, Conduit Street, London; and the display cabinet to the left is certainly No.182 ‘A Chippendale China Cabinet, c.1765′ offered by M. Harris & Sons. So I guess this panning shot was of a collection of various dealers’ objects at the entrance to the exhibition, indicating the sheer range of things offered for sale?
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932, screenshot of general view.
The Exhibition had 1,380 objects, and the film obviously does not cover all of them, but there are 13objects highlighted in the film, so for those that watch the film, here’s some information on the dealers who were behind the objects (and a little bit of information on where the objects are now, if it has been possible to trace them) – I’ll do this in the sequence of the objects highlighted in the film by the narrator:
1st object – (see below) in the film the narrator spends a few moments on this object; it is also object No.1 in the catalogue: ‘An embroidered Throne used Queen Elizabeth, English 1578’; this was offered by the well-known London antique dealers Acton Surgey Ltd & Mallett & Son. Thanks to our friends William DeGregorio and Chris Jussel (in the USA) we know that the embroidered throne made its way into the collection of Sir William Burrell (1861-1958) and remains in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow (it is currently in storage at The Burrell – see below).
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘An embroidered Throne used by Queen Elizabeth, English 1578’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.The ‘Kimberley Throne’, c.1554-1578, (14.217). The Burrell Collection, Glasgow. Photograph, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow.
2nd object – (see below) mentioned by the narrator is No.2 in the exhibition catalogue, ‘A gold embroidered jacket, lace shirt, and gloves, English, late 16th century’; it was also offered by Acton Surgey Ltd; the jacket is now in the collections of Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the USA. It was purchased from Acton Surgey by the collector Elizabeth Day McCormick (1873-1957) in 1943 and gifted to the Boston MFA. It is not known what happened to the shirt or the gloves; and it has not also been possible to identify the ‘gold and enamelled jewel set with diamonds and rubies’ that the Narrator also mentions.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A gold embroidered jacket, English, late 16th century’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.‘Women’s Jacket, English about 1610-15 with later alterations’. The Elizabeth Day McCormick Collection, Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 43.243. Image copyright Boston MFA.
3rd object – (see below) the narrator describes a ‘Gothic tapestry, over 400 years old’, this is either No.270 or No.271 in the catalogue. Neither are illustrated in the catalogue, but are both described in the catalogue as ‘A panel of Gothic tapestry, Franco-Flemish, circa 1500’ and both are offered by The Spanish Art Gallery Ltd, Conduit Street, London. It has not been possible to trace the present whereabouts of the tapestry.
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 film, screenshot of ‘Gothic tapestry’.
4th object – (see below) this is described by the narrator in the film as ‘a fine specimen of a Henry VII salt-cellar in hour-glass form’. This is No.445 in the catalogue; ‘A Henry VII silver-gilt standing salt, London 1505’. It is also illustrated in the catalogue, and was offered by the antique silver dealers Crichton Brothers, then trading at 22 Old Bond Street, London. It has not been possible to trace the Henry VII salt – the narrator in the film suggested that it was the only known piece of silver with the date 1505, so I guess if it does still exist, it must be easily identifiable? (our friend Chris Coles spotted the salt in a 1969 exhibition catalogue produced by The Goldsmiths Company….so perhaps the salt is in the collections of The Goldsmiths – thanks Chris!)
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A Henry VII silver-gilt standing salt, London 1505’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
5th object – (see below) the narrator describes a ‘stand for a porringer or tankard….previously owned by the diarist Samuel Pepys’. This is No.618 in the catalogue – ‘The Charles II silver-gilt ‘Pepys’ tazza, London 1678′. It is not illustrated in the catalogue, but was also offered by the antique silver dealer Crichton Brothers. The ‘tazza’ is now in the collections of The Clark Institute in Massachusetts in the USA. It was commissioned by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) in 1678 and was sold at Sotheby’s on 1st April 1931 (Lot 3) to Crichton Brothers, who appear to have sold it to the American silversmith and art curator Peter Guille of New York, who sold it to Robert Sterling Clark in 1946.
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 film, screenshot of ‘Pepys’ ‘tazza”.Footed Salver, silver-gilt, 1678/79. Clark Institute, 1955.298. Image copyright Clark Institute.
6th object – (see below) described by the narrator as a ‘Chippendale chair’, but I can’t find this chair (or even a set of them) listed in the exhibition catalogue; perhaps it was a late edition to the exhibition?
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 film, screenshot of ‘Chippendale chair’.
7th object – (see below) the narrator describes 3 walnut chairs, ‘made about 1690’. There are a number of such chairs in the exhibition catalogue, but without a photograph of them from the catalogue it has not been possible to identify which of the chairs the narrator is referring too? However, the centre chair, could be No.50 in the catalogue, ‘A William and Mary armchair of small size, circa 1690’, and said to have ‘traditionally been used by Queen Anne’; it was offered for sale by the well-known dealers Moss Harris & Sons.
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 film, screenshot of ‘Walnut chairs’.
8th object – (see below) is described by the narrator as ‘a fine gesso table, formerly at Stowe’, is certainly No.121 in the Exhibition catalogue; it is illustrated and described as ‘A George II gilt side table…formerly at Stowe’ and was offered for sale by the antique dealer and interior decorator Gregory & Co., then trading at 27 Bruton Street, London. The table was originally sold at the auction sale of the contents of Stowe House in 1848, following the bankruptcy of the Duke of Buckingham.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A George II gilt side table’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
It has not been possible to trace the whereabouts of the side table, but interestingly, another giltwood side table from Stowe was on display at the 1932 Exhibition; No.98, ‘A George I gilt gesso table, circa 1715’, and offered for sale by the antique dealer A.G. Lewis, Brompton Road, London. This table (see below) is one of a pair (possibly three?) side tables associated with Stowe. In 1930, one table, (perhaps the same one in the 1932 exhibition?) was in the stock of the antique dealer Kent Galleries, Conduit Street (Kent Gallery are associated with The Spanish Gallery who offered the ‘Gothic tapestry’ at the 1932 Exhibition). One of the tables (perhaps the same one?) is now in the V&A Museum (see below too). The V&A table was sold to the V&A by the antique dealer Phillips of Hitchin in 1947, having been through the hands of a number of other antique dealers, including John Bly of Tring and Edinborough of Stamford. All of this highlights the significance of inter-dealer trading that sustained the antique trade for much of the 20th century.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A George I gilt gesso table’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.The Stowe side table at the V&A Museum. Photograph, Year of the Dealer project, University of Leeds.
9th object – (see below) the narrator describes a ‘spinning wheel, perfectly usable today’ as the next object. It is a ‘Sheraton spinning wheel, circa 1790….made by John Planta, Fulneck’; it was No.231 in the catalogue and was illustrated and offered for sale by the antique dealer Law, Foulsham & Cole, South Molton Street, London. There are several such spinning wheels by Planta, who was based in Leeds in the late 18th century – one example (although not the one in the 1932 Exhibition), remains in the collections at Temple Newsam, near Leeds.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A Sheraton spinning wheel, circa 1790’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
10th object – (see below) the narrator describes as a ‘rare cream lacquer cabinet, made towards the end of the 17th century’. This was No.31 in the catalogue, ‘a Charles II lacquer cabinet, circa 1680′ and was offered for sale by the dealer E.H. Benjamin, 39 Brook Street, London. White lacquer cabinets are the rarest of lacquer furniture, and thanks to our friends Chris Coles and Thomas Lange (at Ronald Phillips) we have some information on the cabinet. Chris tells us that the cabinet on stand was in stock with the American antique dealers’ French & Co in 1987.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A Charles II lacquer cabinet, circa 1680’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.French & Co advert, 1987. Image from Chris Coles.
Thomas Lange tells us that as well as the cabinet being on display at the Art Treasures Exhibition in 1932 it was in the collection of Lady Binning in 1938, and later returned to the antiques trade and in the stock of R.A. Lee antiques. It was later acquired by Ronald Phillips, who loaned it to an exhibition at The Wallace Collection in London in 2008; the cabinet was subsequently sold by Ronald Phillips and is now in a private collection – Thanks to Thomas Lange for this update!
Cabinet, Ronald Phillips, London (now in Private Collection) – image courtesy of Ronald Phillips.
11th object – (see below) the narrator describes another cabinet, this time ‘a fine Adam satinwood example’ – he mentions that ‘it was purchased by the Queen at her recent visit to the exhibition’ (this would be Queen Mary, a very well-known collector of antiques). The cabinet is No.205 in the catalogue, described as ‘an Adam satinwood cabinet, circa 1780’, but is not illustrated; it was offered for sale by the antique dealer Mallet & Sons, one of Queen Mary’s favourite antique dealers. I can’t find the cabinet in Royal Collections, so perhaps the cabinet was sold from the collections or given away or was destroyed?
Art Treasures Exhibition 1932 film, screenshot of ‘Adam satinwood cabinet’.
12th object – (see below) the narrator describes ‘a lovely satinwood side table’, ‘one of Lord Nelson’s gifts to Lady Hamilton’. This is one of 3 tables on display at the exhibition, No.241, ‘a set of three satinwood tables, circa 1795’; they were illustrated and were offered for sale by the dealer A.G. Lewis. Like the film, the catalogue mentions that the tables were presented by Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton. Given the provenance, it’s surprising I can’t find them anywhere? Two of the tables were in the collection of Arthur Sanderson (1846-1915), the well-known collector in Edinburgh; they are listed in the auction sale catalogue of Sanderson’s collection sold by Knight, Frank & Rutley, Hanover Square, London, June 14th-16th 1911 as Lot 540 ‘A PAIR OF SHERATON SHAPED FRONT SIDE-TABLES, which (together with Lot 541 A SHERATON BOOKCASE) were ‘said to have been made by Sheraton for Lord Nelson and given by him to Lady Hamilton at Naples’; (our friend Chris Coles tells me that the Nelson tables were in the collection of the antique dealer George Stoner (of Stoner & Evans) in 1912; and that one of the tables was in the stock of Moss Harris & Sons in 1935; Chris rightly suggests that as the three tables don’t exactly match, they are more likely to have been separated – thanks again Chris!)
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘A set of three satinwood side tables, circa 1795’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.
Finally, 13th object – the narrator highlights that this object (a painting by Rembrandt) is ‘the most valuable object here’. It is No.1355 in the exhibition catalogue, ‘Rembrandt van Rhyn (1606-1669), ‘Aristotle’, signed and dated 1653′. It was offered for sale by the world-famous art dealer Joseph Duveen (1869-1939). Duveen bought and sold the painting several times in the decades before the 1932 exhibition. He sold it to the art collector Alfred W. Erickson (1876-1934) in 1928 for $700,000, before buying it back and selling it to Erickson again in the mid 1930s for $590,000. It is now in the collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it has been since 1961.
Art Treasures Exhibition catalogue 1932 – ‘Rembrandt van Rhyn….’Aristotle’. Photograph, Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds.Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) Aristotle with the bust of Homer (1653). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 61.198. Image copyright Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The film of the Art Treasures Exhibition 1932, together with the catalogue of the exhibition, gives a fascinating insight into the publicity for one of the major commercial art exhibitions of the period and is a further demonstration of the significance of the antique trade in the circulation and consumption of antiques (and paintings) and their role in the development of public museum collections – and thanks again to Diana for sending on the link to the film!
