Page 28 - Homes & Antiques (February 2020)

Antiques
in numbers

!",###

A!er being valued at £3,500 on the

Antiques Roadshow last autumn, a
collection that included the "rst Olympic Meet the Expert

medals won by a British black athlete
have sold for £8,000 at auction. Runner Antique textiles dealer, Meg Andrews
Jack London won bronze and silver

in the 1928 Olympic Games.

I’ve collected since I was a child – periods. I’m interested in how
stamps and postcards to start with designs evolved, and I try to #nd
– and I was very in!uenced by a unusual pieces to research and sell
friend’s Edwardian home, which on to museums, design archives
was stu"ed with antiques. and collectors. I would describe
myself as a textile detective. I’m
In my twenties, I joined Sotheby’s a trustee of The Textile Society
Belgravia salesroom, working and, at the twice-yearly fairs,
on the front counter. I used to I sell items from a few pounds
cycle to the V&A to go to lectures upwards – a li$le piece of antique
on antique furniture to build fabric framed can look as lovely as
up my knowledge. I moved to a larger and much more expensive
the ceramics department, then wall hanging.
furniture, and set up the antique
textiles department in 1970. At home, I have antique fabrics
on every wall. In my o%ce, I have
I’ve been an independent a favourite fragment of an early
dealer for 30 years. I sell 18th 18th-century crewelwork curtain
and 19th-century costume and depicting a hunter, a stag and a
dress, authentic Kashmir shawls hound. I’m o&en asked if I’ll sell it
and those of Paisley design, and the answer’s always no.
embroideries, and printed and
woven antique fabrics from all meg-andrews.com
HOMEWARD FROM LEFT

BOUND 1938 furnishing
linen, £3,000;
Venetian brocade,
Be careful what you give away. £550; velvet
An 18th-century gilt-bronze cushion, £120.
Buddha from Tibet, consigned by
a local charity shop, is heading
back to the Far East after it
sold for £15,500 at Mallams
Cheltenham, against an estimate
of £200-£300. Mallams specialist
Robin Fisher says, ‘We had other
Tibetan Buddhas in the sale,
but this one was particularly
desirable due to its original
patina, subject and condition.’
01242 235712;
mallams.co.uk

28 Homes & Antiques February 2020