Antiques expert Mark Hill travels to the German city of Leipzig, and check out some of its antiques and vintage shops, the Grassi Museum and the Alte Messe flea market.
Research into the artist Aedwyn Darroll (1929-2005), based on a late 1950s oil on board portrait of ‘Ron’ by him.
Information about the glass eggs sold by Ikea, and designed by the Swedish designer and artist Bjorn Ronnquist
Ludwig Hohlwein (1874-1949) is one of the most celebrated and successful poster artists of the early 20th century. Renowned for his use of flat, interlocking planes of bold, contrasting colours with sharply defined forms, he reached the height of his skills from c1912-25. He trained in Munich as an architect, but moved into poster design […]
An examination of an early Fish vase designed and made by Michael Harris and made at the Royal College Of Art, London, therefore before those made at Mdina Glass.
As regular readers of my blog will know, I buy a lot of pictures and prints. I began buying them at school, when I was 15, and they’re all still surrounding me, spread around our home. And I honestly like all of them as much today as I did when I bought them. Whether or […]
One of my favourite places to browse on a Sunday afternoon is Oxfam Books. What people turn off their bookshelves and out of their homes is endlessly fascinating for me. It’s always the pamphlets and booklets that I am drawn to first, from exhibition catalogues to more esoteric publications. A few years ago, I found […]
Visiting the ‘OstBerlin‘ exhibition in the Museum Ephraim-Palais in Berlin last weekend, I was impressed by the quality and quantity of period paintings, drawings and prints of the developing East German part of the city, dating from the 1950s-80s. So, when I stumbled across an etching of a notable West German building from the same […]
The discovery of a group of architectural sketches by the Arts & Crafts architect Philip Webb in Bogota leads antiques expert Mark Hill to consider why they are there as he walks around the city.
This Christmas and New Year (December 2018 & January 2019), the banker and I decided to continue the holidays we’ve taken in South America over the years and cashed in our air miles to make a trip to Colombia. Despite what you may think, and the large numbers of policemen and soldiers on many streets, […]
I didn’t want to die at 36, but to a young art history student living away from home for the first time, Amedeo Modigliani’s life (1884-1920) seemed dramatic, charismatic, exciting and bohemian. I loved (and still love) his art and set myself a challenge of one day owning something directly connected to it and him […]
I love finding a piece with its original label or sticker still attached, as it can yield a lot of useful information, especially if the piece is otherwise unmarked. Most labels were washed off, or otherwise removed, by the original owner when they got home, so survivors are scarce. Obviously, the first indication a label […]