Cold-Cast bronzing has been around since the early 1960s but with the selling opportunities offered by the internet and eBay, additional techniques have been adopted to mimic real bronze more convincingly. It is widely agreed however that the term cold-cast is misleading as the process involving a mix of resin and bronze powder requires none of the skill involved in making and casting sculpture in bronze.

There are ways to tell if a bronze sculpture is real but inevitably they do involve seeing, touching and examining the sculpture which cannot be done online. They are:

Sound – tap the sculpture with a solid object like a wedding ring. The real thing produces a clear, resonant sound. Resin produces a dull thud or plastic sound.

Weight – bronze is generally heavy. If a piece feels unnaturally light it is likely to be wrong.

Colour and patina – bronze will have a deeper colour with a patina created by exposure to air and moisture. Fakes may show signs of artificial patination and can flake or chip.

Details and quality – real bronze is cast hollow and a scratch will reveal shiny bronze beneath and genuine bronzes are also usually meticulously crafted with intricate details and a high level of artistry.

Signature and Foundry markings – these can be a way to verify the authenticity.

In the light of the rise in the marketing of resin bronzes, DACS is hoping to revive a project to register genuine bronzes.

And a special shout out to all the spectators who braved the rain to cheer everyone on.

Thanks also to everyone who has so generously sponsored Adam #TeamNSPCC so far – the link to Adam’s Just Giving page is still open and there are some excellent photos of him running with his 3 dogs…

Hallett Associate Director, Claire Pardy caught up with Alex Puddy the Chair of CADA in the lead-up to the fair.

Laurie Lee described his poet friend Frank Mansell ‘as Cotswold asa dry-stone wall’ which seems a particularly appropriate way to describe the chair of the Cotswold Antique Dealers’ Association, Alex Puddy, steeped as he is, in Cotswold architectural heritage.

Born in Bath and brought up in Cheltenham, Alex comes from an antique dealing family where everything was for sale including the kitchen table.Apprenticed to an old friend of his father’s Robert de Grand, he spent sometime in Belgium learning the trade and back in the Cotswolds, started dealing in watercolours, travelling throughout the country buying and selling. By the early 1990s he had bought a house and started to establish himself through the classic route for that time, with a stand at Olympia. It was there that he made his first major sale to no other than the enormously stylish dealer, Axel Vervoordt.

Although there is a tendency to think of the Cotswolds as a bastion of the traditional British antique dealer and indeed, they have survived here in greater numbers than anywhere else, like the great British farmer and with a similar average age, diversification has been the key to success. Alex has proved himself particularly adept at this: combining manufacture of a high-quality garden collection made of natural materials with expertly sourced antique statuary and furniture, Modern British art, and sculpture and from time to time, alighting on unattributed or wrongly described sleepers or finds, which he researches to establish an authentic provenance.

Alex’s links with CADA go back 30 years when, in his early 20s, he was a very young committee member. Having drifted away, he was invited back onto the committee by the then Chair, Antique English pottery specialist JohnHoward and when he retired, Alex stepped up just as the fair was getting established at Blenheim Palace. Since then and as Blenheim has evolved with the changing of the old guard, Alex needed to find another home and hit upon Compton Verney. With its fabulous Adam architecture, Capability Brown landscape, diverse permanent collection, and a changing programme of exhibitions, it has proved a popular venue with members and visitors.

In addition to the Fair, he has built two websites and created a house style that combines the traditional and contemporary. His highly professional team ensures that the Fair fulfils the aims of CADA, promoting theCotswolds as a place for leisure, pleasure, and antiques and more specifically, to create an event which brings the Association’s dealers in touch with the wider public. He is the first to admit that BADA and LAPADA do all the hard work, lobbying parliament and ensuring that members are kept informed of changes in legislation and helping them to implement them, but he also feels that as a local association, the members do play an enormously important part.

This year’s fair which runs from the 13^th to the 16^th October at Compton Verney promises to offer a great cross section of dealers with many members returning after all the dramas of the last couple of years.

You can find out more here: www.cotswolds-antiques-art.com/cada-fairs

Find out more about Alex’s company Architectural Heritage here: www.architectural-heritage.co.uk

It’s emerged that with the current raft of sanctions on Moscow following its invasion of the Ukraine, that dozens of masterpieces loaned between European and Russian museums are stuck in limbo. Major European museums are facing problems trying to return Russian works and get back their own pieces, while important future loans have been cancelled.

With all insurances for Russians and Russian entities on a sanction list having been suspended, Adam brought his expert art insurance opinion to the situation:

“Insurers can neither receive premiums, nor pay claims. Furthermore, the new package of sanctions against Russia includes luxury goods and unfortunately, fine art falls under this bracket.

“There is no clear definition as to what constitutes Russian affiliated risks and therefore, as it stands at the moment, nearly all specialist art insurers are not renewing nor accepting new business from any Russian individual or entity whether sanctioned or not.”

Read the full article here

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Photo caption:

A painting by Wassily Kandinsky, whose works are currently facing a long trip back to Russia from an exhibition in Seoul because of a lack of flights CREDIT: AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere

But this ignores the fact that antique values are dynamic and change according to prevailing tastes. There are inevitably many categories of art which are not as sought after now as they were say 30 years ago. Notable amongst these and often cited are so-called brown furniture and Victorian pictures by minor artists – precisely the sort of thing that many people have inherited. On the other hand, we all read about the inherited Chinese vase stored for years in a kitchen cupboard or used as an umbrella stand that turns out to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds