I couldn’t resist this tiny, but oh-so evocative, 1980s relic when I chanced across it in Past Caring, one of my favourite London vintage shops. This small plastic Le Clip quartz watch was meant to be clipped onto the lapel of your jacket, your jacket pocket, or even your tie or shirt. The circular grey […]
BBC Antiques Roadshow expert Mark Hill looks at the work of Israeli Jewish woman artist Hanna Eshel in light of a painting he bought from her in 2000.
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.
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 […]
When I was pulling together my ‘Design At Home’ 20th century design auction for Dawson’s Auctioneers earlier this year, a vendor contacted me wishing to sell a group of British postwar furniture owned by his uncle, who had sadly recently died. His uncle had bought all the pieces brand new in 1961, and had looked […]
The third Bruton Decorative Antiques Fair will be held from the 19th to 21st October 2018, near the beautiful and deeply trendy Somerset town of Bruton. I’ve been attending since it began in 2016, having been a fan of its big sister, the Bath Decorative Antiques Fair, which was first held in 1989! At the […]
Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA & Antiques. An unholy trinity? Last weekend a man died whose name is known to few, but whose influence can be seen in hundreds of millions of homes across the world. Ingvar Kamprad (1926-2018) was perhaps the single most influential force over the way we decorate our homes, and ought to be […]
Saturday 2nd December 2017 saw my first ‘Design At Home’ midcentury modern and contemporary design auction with Dawson’s Auctions, and my return to the auction world (other than as a buyer!) after 16 years. And I loved it – every single bit of it! It was great to connect with new clients, and reconnect to […]
Roadshow Miscellaneous specialist Mark Hill goes behind the scenes of the BBC Antiques Roadshow as it celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2017… Click here to view the 2017 dates and venues for filming the Antiques Roadshow A set of Beatles autographs, a battered teddy bear, granny’s beloved china tea set, a diamond ring, a plastic […]