Marvellous menagerie at spring fair
The themed foyer at next April’s Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair at London’s Battersea Park will be An Ornamental Menagerie, focusing on designs, objects and works of art that feature creatures great and small.
The display will encompass furniture decorated with carvings such as classical lions’ paws or chinoiserie Ho Ho birds; formal and folk art favouring beloved pets and domesticated beasts; decorated textiles; nostalgic toys; or lamps in the form of carved or cast birds.
Of the three Decorative Fairs that take place each year, the spring edition is recognised as the hunting ground for garden-related decoration in metal, wood or stone. Objects on offer include planters, urns and troughs, seating, statuary and re-purposed objets such as antique or industrial window frames re-glazed with mirror.
Elsewhere, the fair’s specialist dealers offer a panoply of unusual period design, objects and 20th-century classics mixed with fine and decorative antiques in a beguiling blend of splendour and surprise. Works of art from the ancient to the contemporary, including sculpture, paintings, prints and photography, are an important element of the Fair, as befits their role in a polished interior scheme.
The fair takes place from April 17 to 22.