Woolley and Wallis, Auctioneers of Salisbury-Try to sell me a Gio Ponti Fake.

I was a bit pushed for time so I got some pictures sent from Michael Jeffrey at Woolley and Wallis.

 It was a specialist sale with a specialist 20th Century Design department.

http://www.woolleyandwallis.co.uk/departments/20th-century-design.aspx

Michael has been around a long time, I first met him at Greenwich town hall 20 years ago, and so I had a bit of trust for his judgement.

How wrong can you be?

Richard Ginori are a company that have made quality ceramics for centuries and their collaboration period with Gio Ponti is a period that I admire. This was a golden period in the history of the company in my opinion. They combined fresh wonderful design with the quality of the reputation that they upheld.

I must say I had a reservation about the quality when I saw the pictures.

Trust and auctioneers is something I keep on forgetting is non-existent.

But I gave the benefit of the doubt to Jeffrey, as this is what he does for a living. There is a good possibility that he had seen more of this genre than I.

He used o work for a major London auction house.

The auctioneer’s job is to look after the seller. So I do as much as I can to mitigate my purchases.

I think it is slight of hand when the cataloguer knows that something is damaged and does not give a condition report willingly so on this occasion I requested said report and received a glowing recommendation as to its worth.

I looked at the catalogue description. A Richard Ginori earthenware vase designed by Gio Ponti.

It even pointed to comparable auction records from Sotheby’s

If Jeffrey had have stood on the steeple of Salisbury Cathedral and shouted.

‘This is Gio Ponti vase’ it could not have been clearer that he was knocking this out as a genuine article. He wrote the script himself.

See picture to right.

Should I buy some Royal Mail shares or a Gio Ponti I thought there is a clear 300 quid profit in the shares but as ever I prefer art and I would make a bid.

I bought it online as per Woolley’s recommendation covered legally by the description. It was not after or from the circle of it was A Richard Ginori designed by Gio Ponti.

I was thrilled to be successful bidders I have hardly seen any Ponti never mind own one.
It was the fact that I got it for £700 that sent a few alarm bells ringing. But I knew I was covered by the catalogue description.

Someday you get busy others you don’t so when I had time I started my research, a little late, granted, and slowly came back down to earth.

I was even more concerned as I had been inspired by one of Ponti’s designs for a vase of my own. So if I can paint t someone else can.

So I asked Colin my friend what he thought and we set out to do a bit of research together.

I wanted to take a back seat so I don’t look too deeply into it.

In no time at all, he did, what Wallis and Gromit should have done.

“Not sure Wayne I think its fake” he proclaimed.

‘How dare the Woolleybacks of Salisbury try to sell me a fake’ I thought

Now it’s my turn so I contacted Ginori and they said quite clearly this is no one of theirs.

Jeffrey phones me talking about the tone of my email telling him he had tried to knock me out a fake.

“How do you know?” he said
“I contacted Ginori”

“Oh right” his attitude changed completely.

I didn’t call him a disgrace to his profession or claim he was trying to extort cash under false pretences.

“Can you send me the correspondence?” he asked

“No” I replied
Left an original Gio Ponti Vase by Ginori.
It makes you feel a bit stupid when this happens “Do they think I am a bit woolly around the ears”

Selling fake C.D’s is a punishable offence. Selling fake Louis Vuitton bags will land you in jail.
At least you know where you are when you go around a dodgy market.

Can Ginori seize this vase as it could damage the credibility of the company and its heritage for absolute quality?
It is not a vase by them
Could Woolley and Walls be reported to the Police?

But when the air of credibility is misleading well it could be said that this is a purposeful action. Well it fooled me this time.
At least you know when a robber is mugging you.

I know we all make mistakes but in this instance it took me 10 minutes to do what Michael Jeffrey should have done. I would like to know why he did no research.

I contacted the trading standards who duly visited them.
I think he will be a bit more careful with his descriptions from now on. I will keep my eye on them.
I will not trust his judgement again and I don’t think you should either.



Should Auctioneers be regulated?
 Should the-saleroom.com be checked over in more detail?

http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/should-uk-auctioneers-be-regulated.html

Celebrity Antique Road Trip With Edwina Curry

It seems an age ago when they came in to film. I received a call from STV who produce the programme who told me that it was due to go out this Friday.

It will either be very funny, Edwina Curry buying a corset in my shop that I didn’t even know I had. Will I ever be able to show my face in public again? I threw in a pair of diamante flapper girl garters, I said flapper girl, garters. See for yourself.

7pm this Friday 15th November 2013 on BBC2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b03j032t/ watch it here for 7 days



http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/celebrity-antique-roadtrip-drop-in-to.html

This is what I wrote at the time.

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Celebrity Antique Roadtrip Drop In To My Shop To Film......With Edwina Curry.

I decided to open the shop Saturday last 25th May, as there was a massive commemoration to honour the part Liverpool played in the Battle of the Atlantic.

So I get in and put my lights on and a board out in Water Street and my mobile rings.

“Oh hi it’s the BBC we will be with you just after eleven”

“What for” I asked as I didn’t have a clue

“Antique Road Trip”

“Oh right” I said as I realised I didn’t even have a shave and I realised I wasn’t looking my best. Surely they could have let me know and I would have made an effort, but there you go we can manage this lack of oversight that makes the usual lack of planning that the BBC undertake, look efficient.
I found a razor and s destubbled my chin and had a little tidy around. It wasn’t bad and its something I can take care of. It was after 12 and I sent a text to check I have the right day receiving the usual we are a little bit delayed.
I had been going to pen a letter to the Antique Trade gazette complaining how the glut of programmes are not helping the trade when the phone rang some weeks ago.

“Hi Wayne its Celebrity Antique Road Trip we would like to film in your shop”

“Where do you want me?” I said ashamedly capitulating to the power of the media.
Now here I am standing in front of the washroom mirror with a head like a burst couch and a hangover after a late night in Alma De Cuba in Seal Street regretting it.
“Who is the celebrity? “ I had asked and the subject was surprisingly well dodged by Sandy on the other end of my mobile.
It was manic in the streets so I got them into the private garage that was half empty below the building and I went to greet them.
I recognise that face I thought as a woman walked towards me.
“Bloody ‘ell its Edwina Curry” I said under my breath as I greeted them all welcoming them to India Buildings.
Trust my flippin’ luck I thought she must be one of the most hated politicians in Liverpool.
Most Liverpudlians have abandoned her saying she was from Crosby and that’s not really Liverpool. I will just have to get on with it I thought, but I am in for it when this programme goes out.
To commemorate the passing of Lady Thatcher I had a recent antique in the window to show my feelings towards her.
I had been saving it for a special occassion.
Was this now, not looking in good taste or are we going to get into a bit of a ding-dong.
She was quite nice really I was surprised on how pleasant she was as they set up the gear and off we went.
They started looking around in cabinets and behind things and in no time at all “Whats this Wayne,” she said
I couldn’t believe it she had found an old 50’s corset that I had found in the bottom drawer of a cabinet, a Maccassar Ebony buffet and I had forgotten about it.
Trust her, no one has even noticed it before and off she went modelling it while I am standing there thinking I wish I had sent that letter in to the gazzette.
Then she tries it next to me for size to see if it fits.
“I can’t believe I have just let you do that,” I said. Thinking how am I going to retrieve my reputation after this.
Anyway in for a penny I threw in a pair of flapper girl garters that she loved and we were off, here is a cigarette holder while she pretended to blow smoke in my face I just stood there flabbergasted.
I don’t usually do cringe but I must have looked like I had been slapped.
Her and the BBC dealer who was a nice bloke doing his best to control her went off round the shop and we managed to calm her down.
It is a good job I had just moved house splitting with my ex-girlfriends because I wouldn’t be getting in tonight after having Egwina in the shop.
Then to make it worse she is kissing me goodbye on camera.
My god those same lips have been all over John Major I thought as I tried to keep a straight face.
The things you have to do for publicity.
Next thing I am having my photo taken with her and she is going to tweet me will I ever live this down.
I think I will stay closed from now on of a Saturday.
I am going to be in a lot of trouble when this goes out which I think is September.

Fornasetti Teapot-Piece of the Week.

 

Piero Fornasetti was born in Milan on 10th December 1913.

 He began drawing from an early age.

His first project was a collection of silk scarves for the Milan Triennale of 1933. Printed in a Trompe L’oeil using newspaper print they were rejected by the committee.

He returned the next year with even more adventurous designs.

He caught the eye of the remarkable Gio Ponti in the late 1930’s.
Ponti was to be influential in his life.

He uses surreal images that seem to have a historical place in the mind of anyone who understands art. He is able to juxtapose ideas in the mind of the onlooker.

Today he has become big business a money-spinner.

A whole industry has set up around his work. There are fakes.

Prices can range from £50 to £50,000 or more. There are probably 13,000 creations of his. Items after Fornasetti’s death in 1988 are marked with a date. Generally a under glaze mark.

A cabinet recently valued by a nerd at Peter Wilson of Nantwich at £1000 to £2000 made £19,000 plus commission.

I always try to have a few bits it is always so interesting. http://www.classicartdeco.co.uk/miscellaneous.php

Here a teapot that is my piece of the week.

Should UK Auctioneers be regulated?

I often deal with some of the most knowledgeable and professional auctioneers in the antique trade. I have ongoing relationships with auctioneers that spell out their terms and I feel I can rely on them.
I also have to deal with some of the biggest shysters who I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them.

It is often the porters, the people who usually run a saleroom, who go unmentioned. These are usually the people I rely on to get a feeling of a place.
Very often not the spiv in a suit who runs it.


The Internet has made it easy for commission merchants to fleece the public.
This combined with the BBC, advertising the salerooms, for cheap entertainment, giving them credibility, on a daily basis.
The public now seem to be of the mindset that an auction house is the source of the goods.
That may often be the case but I am often surprised how the public will often pay more from an auctioneer than the price you would sell it for in a shop….. Then give the commission men 20%.

Most people could not be aware that an auctioneer will get 40%, yes 40% of the hammer price.
That is 20% from the buyer and 20% from the vendor. Some charge more.

They then have the insult to not even wrapping the goods for you.
Most of them don’t even supply bubble wrap.

Many of them belong to trade associations that are no more than sewing circles. That collude to give an air of credibility.
If you look into many of them they are no more better than the fences that some of them represent.

The auctioneers can’t and won’t regulate themselves. It’s too good for them at the moment with the Internet connecting them worldwide.

Why would a saleroom wish to hide the fact that a work of art is damaged?
Yes I know we deal in a trade that has articles that have hundreds of years of wear and tear on them, but really why shouldn’t each lot have a condition report attached to it. Why do they hide behind a caveat emptor of buyer beware.
 This is slight of hand in my opinion. Any other trade would be outlawed by society if they were treated the way some auctioneers treat the public.

Back street garages get a bad name, but what about back street auctioneers.
 That said I have had particular problems with Bonham’s Chester, no wonder they are closing.

I have also been illegaly overcharged by Sotheby’s, a company most people foolishly believe are squeaky clean.
They colluded with other auction houses to price fix.
The head of major auction houses were even sentenced in the US. Jail was too good for them.

Now many of the Antique trade newspapers have set up sites that enable buyers to bid from the luxury of their own home, via computer.
They have one purpose in mind, to add further charges for themselves.
To add another layer of commission.
Do these web-based vehicles check the credibility of the company that they are representing on the web?
Do we now have middlemen representing middlemen?

Today I ask, “Should auctioneers be regulated”.

So the main person who would benefit would be the buyer.
A saleroom currently has no moral obligation to a buyer as they work for the vendor.

Good commerce achieves good results.
Surely the long-term style of a company keeps the public coming back.

I get contempt from auctioneers, threats of storage charges, hidden fees, terms and conditions hidden away with unworkable contracts that you would never expect in any industry.

Maybe its time to stop this.

In France commissaires priseurs are highly regarded, they have to take exams and be examined by the State for credentials.
Its about time this happened in the UK I think.

Should UK Auctioneers be regulated.

Red or Dead-I Turn Into An Anorak.

I don’t much care for the secondary market in memorabilia.

Autographs and all that sort of stuff don’t do anything for me.

It is sometimes easy to dismiss collectors and their habits. I want bronze.

What is it that we all collect stuff? What drives a stamp collector?

Is it more like a disorder than a vocation? Who am I to say?

Then the other day while on the Internet my finger hovered over the mouse in my right hand and I pressed the button, suddenly I owned an autographed picture of the Liverpool team, from when I do not know it just seemed cheap, so I bought it.

I then wondered whether it was damaged or whether there was something that I had not noticed about it, why did no one bid.

I picked it up and Wow it was the team of…well that’s easier than it looks.

David Fairclough, Ginger, was in there, and I say that with regret because as cruel teenagers that what we used to call him when he watched us playing football on the school playing field next to where he lived. We knew he had trials for Liverpool and how he got his own back on all us horrid little boys the night he scored the goal against St Etienne. It was explosive I had no nails left that night.

Shortly after he came and knocked the ball around on he field, did Davey or Mr Fairclough as we now called him.

He has been in the shop since and I did not own up to it.

Dagliesh or Dog leash as he was called on his testimonial, is there, bottom shelf.

Keegan had left for £550, 000 and they signed Dagleish for £440,000 what a bargain.

Makes the price that Suarez the cannibal is worth look a bit ridiculous. Tommy Smith is not there and he would have battered Suarez the way he has made a fool of the Football club.

I bet any player in the photo would have played for Liverpool for nothing…well except Yozzer Hughes look-alike Graham Souness who was always a bit greedy.

Bill Shankly would have sacked him on the spot.

It’s all about money now.



I claim I am the only one who ever bunked into the Boys Pen…yes into the pen.

It was the deciding match of the season, remember the one that Bill Shankly took off his jacket, and proclaimed, to all, with his red shirt. I am one of you. Leeds United was the big team and we had to break their stranglehold under Don Revie and we did that and took the title.

I had got my place in the Pen, as it was only 20 or 30p or some silly price leaving 10p of my milk round money for a packet of cigs.

I got caught smoking once when the Old Man, who was in the paddock, was watching me.

You would wait for one of the coppers on guard of the lovely little treasures in the Pen to turn the other way or stop someone getting over the 10ft high railings with spikes, and you were off, skimming up and through the gap in the barbed wire that seemed to be left there to entice you to have a go.

He got the end of my leg this time but I was too quick for him as he adjusted his helmet I give him a cheeky grin the other side of the fence.

The game started and it was bad, they used to say the ground held 65,000 but there must have been 80,000 in the ground that day.

I was continually picked up and swirled around as if on a tempestuous sea.

I would be moved yards in one direction, then the other, and the risk was always to ensure you did not get trapped and pushed on to a barrier. It was too much. I was going to chance it.

Off I went up the railings of the boy’s pen stockade and through the wire nicking my collar as I ducked my head through.

There was plod standing there waiting for me…. to throw me back into the Kop, the Spion Kop and all its dangers to a young whip of a kid.

‘What’s he doing’ I thought ‘That’s being a bit too conscientious’.

He seemed to stall, a look of ‘what’s he up to’ on his face.

“Let me in I am getting crushed and he let me in and helped me down. So there was Plod was standing there adjusting his helmet again bemused as nobody had ever thought to bunk into the Boys Pen before.

Jimmy Case is lower left it used to be so funny standing in the Kop and he would get the ball and the Kop would collectively gasp urging him to shoot because he had a shot like a rocket. Then you would see those around the goal start to realise that if he missed they were in the line of fire. You can see it on the old replays sometimes the terrified look on the faces of those behind the goal.

Steve Heighway is there. He and Brian Hall had degrees apparently

Heighway was the youth team coach that brought Steven Gerrard and others through from the Academy. Only to have his services dispensed with by a cocky manager who then buggered off for a bigger payday.

Phil Thompson came to our school once to give an inspiring talk. He tells a great tale of the day after winning The European cup. He had ‘borrowed’ the trophy, and took it to celebrate in the Peacock Pub in Kirkby where they had a lock in.

It took them half an hour to find the cup the next day when they all woke up safely under a table still full of champagne.

Just imagine that today ‘Tommo’ borrows the European Cup for the night.

Sammy Lee is there, he of sheer hard work and determination, he used to drink in Kirkland’s on Hardman Street Saturday nights after the match.

He sank his money into a bar called Rumours on Smithdown Road.

That’s what footballers did then in the days before they featured on the Sunday Times rich List.

Alan Kennedy had a rough ride he died young he was a nice man.

I saw some of his cups and trophies for sale once at Charnick Richard but did not buy them.



There are lots of others in the picture I had better stop now I will be here all day. I am turning into an anorak.



Can anyone date the picture I think the player far right on the top shelf may be a clue as he was only around for a season.

It looks like I have got caught up in this memorabilia myself, what’s happened to me? And with the new book out about Mr Shankly by David Peace, about the life of the inspirational man, entitled Red or Dead, which will be a Birthday present that I hope I get the chance to read.

Caravaggio-Whats All The Fuss About?

 Oh Mr Caravaggio 500 years later you knock the stuffing out of me.

I deal in modern art right, 20th century stuff and although I have always respected the old masters. I do see the workmanship and the skills that some of the masters had, as a dying art.
I was amazed by Frederic Lord Leighton’s exhibition at the RA some years ago. His Athlete Wrestling a Python at the Walker Art Gallery here in Liverpool has to be one of my all time favourite sculptures, despite it being late 19th century.The Leighton exhibition was viewed the same day as the Cézanne expo, at; perhaps if my memory serves me right, the Tate, it was a long time ago.
 There was no comparism in my opinion. One was a master the other was an experimentalist. The way the master made a piece of velvet feel as if it was soft to touch, whereas a terracotta urn had a dryness, his painted marble had a feel that you could walk your feet over to cool them down. Such skill comes along only so often.

I understand all of the articles written about Cézanne but I don’t feel it.

A rolling stone really does gather moss. Though I do respect the opinions of people who are employed to write about art, most of them are too clever to be able to really understand. How can someone who can’t even emulsion a wall talk about real skill.

I always think, ‘what are the qualifications needed to paragraph art, and what do some of those entrusted with the purveyors of the pleasures of art really know’.

I blame some writers for building up bad workmanship and calling it modern art, when really it is just poor workmanship.

I often recall, watching an Open University programme late one night when I was a kid, I must have been 11. It was about the painting of a religious icon. I was fascinated with Lapis Lazuli and how it was more expensive than gold and how it was used to adorn religious art in medieval times. How it came from Afghanistan and how it was coveted as a piece of mercurial magic that was the symbol of the robe of the Virgin Mary. I am not that religious but some small slither of symbolism planted a seed in my mind. Why do we worship art?

The questions keep coming and have never stopped asking, and now I find myself with more questions, and the more I answer the more are asked.

I had been on a boat trip that left Liverpool Ireland. The first port of call was Cobh (pronounced Cove).Cobh was the last stopping place of the Titanic and its tourism was based around that fact. There was a Titanic bar that had closed, apparently it hadn’t gone down too well…….it went bust.

Cobh has a monument that had been erected to another maritime disaster, the sinking of the Lusitania, that sunk on its way to Liverpool.

A German U-Boat torpedoed it. It was one of the most tragic losses of life on the sea. It was claimed that the event is said to have shocked America to its core.

It is also said to have brought them into the First World War as allies against the Bosch. http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/lusitania-medal-piece-of-week.html

 A passenger on the mini cruise had left a memento, to a relative who drowned in the disaster. A picture and a rose were laid on foot of the statue.

Up atop the hill amongst the candy coloured houses from the Cathedral the views were magnificent.

It is the closest port to Cork and I got a train into the town. There were lots of old Irish pubs and shops that look like they are in the living room of a house. I went in the art gallery to see a Paul Henry or two. There may have been a Sonia Delauney.

As usual when visiting a place I do not know I am drawn to bookshops. These are the sort of shops that feed my inquisitive mind, that allow me to explore the answers to the questions that I keep asking myself.

Here in all the hundreds of yards of shelves, sat a massive volume, beautifully photographed, a cut above the usual Taschen publications. Buy me! It seemed to be shouting to me, Buy me! The pages folded out, I love books where the photographs are not punctuated by staples.

It was the complete works of Caravaggio, in one book. It was amazing.

I had a 100 Euro note on me but it was130 and it was an expense I had not expected.

I had seen the Graham Dixon-Smith programme about one of the most captivating of characters in art history.

I had been shocked by, how someone with such talent, and raw emotion, could be tinged with a gentle temperament.

How could such a fiery character, who, it was said, would fight duals, with swords and daggers and who could thrust a stiletto as finely as he could paint a peach, be as controversial today as when he was alive?

I had let Derek Jarman’s celluloid images cloud my judgement. But still a man whose legacy lingered all these centuries later fascinated me. I knew the work of art that he created had been passed amongst kings and had survived revolutions and wars.

How could creations made with a mixture of ground up pigments, of tempura and oxides mixed with oil look so real?
Like a photograph. How can I be thrown the raw emotion through a modern picture taken with a camera?
Why hadn’t the paint faded?
Why was the imagery so real?
How could the message be as real today?

I had to buy the book and offered the shop my 100 Euro note and no more and they accepted my offer. It was a heavy book and would need a lot of time to read. I have a lot of books that I need to read. It had its own case that came with it with a handle. It is the sort of book that posers will delicately place on a coffee table to make them look clever I thought. It was a beautiful book.
Should I ever read it and have I wasted 80 quid on a whim?

Sailing out of Cobh at Dusk was a remarkable event. However much you study art there is no equivalent that can beat a beautiful sunset.
The town of Cobh is situated in a natural harbour the pretty houses on the hill were lit up as if by magic and the term Emerald Isle slipped into my mind as the boat slipped out of sight of the harbour.

It was a beautiful event. Not even the famous Irish painter Paul Henry would be able to capture that memory for me.

I looked around the stern of the boat at the silver surfers I thought about another night of naff entertainment on board. But there was a swell developing a gale-force wind was predicted. Though the day was calm, you could feel it building up the further out of the protection of the Harbour, to deep water, you got.

Today had been my Birthday, Thanks Mr sunset for the lovely present.

The boat was like the Mary Celeste that night it was too rocky for most of the pensioners to walk around there was the noise of glasses breaking. Worryingly the ships crew came in to the cabin to bolt down the portholes. An announcement came over the tannoy that the ship was to be diverted to Dublin, which wasn’t half bad I had been there before so I had a mental map.

Armed only with 20 euros I decided that the best place for a rainy Sunday would be the National gallery and then I realised, there within its walls, there is a Caravaggio a real one.

So I will be able to see for myself what all the fuss is about I may be disappointed and wonder what all the fuss is about.
 Well let’s have a look.

Part II to follow.

Wayne Colquhoun-Throws a Wobbler