Attending the Battersea Antiques Fair with youngest brother, his wife Jan, who is an antique chair restorer and mrs maytrees, earlier this week was enjoyable, informative and fun.
We traveled by District Line to Sloane Square, where because Jan had recently been ill, we took advantage of the free minibus to the fair rather than walking there.
Upon arriving we decided to try the Bone Idyll Cafe for lunch before looking at the exhibits on offer. Lunch was not overpriced and was enjoyable. I had a lamb stew with rice for about £13.
After lunch we toured the exhibits separately although the picture above left, shows Jan, her husband and mrs maytrees, together at one of the exhibit stalls. The picture above right, shows a painting by a Ukrainian painter which seemed reasonably priced at c.£400.
My favourite stand was one where a painter was advertising his paintings including one of Nigel Havers and another, of two children, who I took to be the painter's daughters. Although one of the assistants took my details, sadly I doubt that I will be able to use the services of the artist Alex Chamberlain, as his prices seem to range from £10,000 to £150,000 which is slightly above my affordability range. However his work does look good. None the less when I had a portarit of mrs maytrees painted some 50 years ago at the artist's studio in Warwick Square SW1, the price then was only few £100 but the painting was and is excellent
Jan explained that she visited the exhibition fairly frequently to provide her with ideas for her own reupholstering work, but given the prices of the exhibited works, she generally did not attend the Fair for the purposes of buying.
Some of the exhibits on display were fascinating others, for example a life sized lion, were almost silly, though there were a few which were not to my taste at all. There were many from countries of non-European continents, which were great to study. Others were of course not so great, but overall an excellent day out.
We were able to take the free minibus back to Sloane Square Underground station.
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