BRITAIN STILL WORLD’S TREASURE HOUSE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22658, 8 June 1948, Page 6

BRITAIN STILL WORLD’S TREASURE HOUSE

Britain is still the world’s greatest treasure house for the fine arts, according to the most famous London auctioneers and dealers.

London may have ceased, for the moment, owing to the Government import restrictions, to be the master entrepreneur dealing in world-renowned collections from Europe and the Americas, but the fact remains that in the year just ended the two principal salerooms, Christie's and Sotheby's, between them had a turnover of over £3,000,000 Mr. G D. Hobson, of Sotheby’s, described 1047 as a “very heavy" year for works of art, but Sir Alec Martin, of Christie’s, declared it was “only' average. Mr. Ernest Maggs, easily London’s biggest buyer of books, estimates that he spent about £IOO,OOO during the year. Of the score or so of dealers who ship antique silver direct to the United . States, one described it as a "boom" year.

All in "the ring’’ seem agreed that a great mass of Georgian domestic silver has gone abroad, especially to the United States, but few are apprehen sive about Britain being “denuded” of her possessions. As one said, "In the early nineteenth century, Britain, at the height of the industrial revolution, made more silver dinner services than anyone else in the world. The most popular silversmith of this time, Paul Stony alone made more than a million ounces.’’

Every silver dealer in' London still has stocks of Georgian silver and there is no sign of the supply running out. There are stocks of it in country houses and in the vaults of banks. The best market for the fine early silver —early Georgian, Stuart and Elizabethan —is probably the British market. Two Charles II candlesticks were sold recently at Sotheby's for £IOO0 —about £32 an ounce.