EX H I BITION
Eleventh Antique Dealers' Fair. (Grosvenor House.)
FOR those who enjoy peering into the corners of an antique shop, this display, which is on view until June 21st, is almost a surfeit of pleasure—an orgy of connoisseurship. As everyone knows, a single shop can occupy an enthusiastic browser for the greater part of an afternoon ; but here are the best pieces from nearly a hundred shops, well-arranged, well-lighted and set off by luxurious vases of flowers. Though not all the businesses represented are London concerns, most of them are, and of these the majority are to be found in W.1 or S.W.1, with a strong reinforcement from the Brompton Road. The general effect is so rich as to be mildly intoxicating and arouses mingled feelings of admiration and envy. Everything here was made before 1830 and has undergone an examination for authenticity, so that it in no way implies a critical judgement if one mentions specifically, as having given particular pleasure, the furniture of Mallett and Son, Norman Adams and R. F. Lock ; Tilley's, Stafford's and Manheim's china ; Aspreys' silver ; Charles Casimir's pewter, and the carpets and tapestries of Perez. The Parker Gallery and Ellis and Smith show coloured prints, the Leger Galleries a selection of their pictures, and Spink and Son some interesting .English watercolours—the last-named being bnly one of the attractions in perhaps the most remarkable section of the Fair. Books are represented by Batsford, and there are also stands to advertise the Connoisseur. Country Life and the Antique Collector, whose shiny pages have so often illustrated the delightful—but, alas, expensive—treasures of the golden age of craftsmanship. Yet at Grosvenor House, as in the antique shops themselves, there is no compulsion to buy, and it is much just to bo allowed to look and to be reminded of our civilised heritage. " Is man an ape or an angel ? " Coming away from the Antique Dealers' Fair, one tends, like Disraeli, to be for once "on the side
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