The annual Antiques Dealers' Fair opened to the public on Thursday lunchtime in the RDS Main Hall to the customary flurry of well-to-do bargain-hunters. It was a case of first come first served and many of the best pieces had been sold at the charity preview the previous evening. Some buyers were aggrieved at being outmanoeuvred by the more established collectors. Still, the Leinster String Quartet was playing Mozart and strolling among the stands was like Christmas come early, with fine examples of Irish and continental furniture and Georgian silver paintings.
The smaller items such as china and paintings sold well at the preview and anything Irish flew off the stands. Upper Court Manor Antiques of Frances Street and Freshford had several pieces of prized Killarney wood furniture which they say were "snapped up" by collectors.
Noticeable this year is an absence of young buyers, and dealers are blaming this on the high price of property. "Younger people . . . buy expensive houses and expensive cars and can't afford to put anything antique into their houses," according to a helper at George Stacpoole's stand. Perhaps they prefer to buy on the internet. George Carty was at the fair to promote his Interact Publications website (www.irelandantiques.com), which has 15 firms on its website and information on this year's fair.
Maura Duffey of Moycullen Antiques in Co Galway is exhibiting for the first time this year and she was delighted with Wednesday evening's sales. A set of dining chairs, an 18th-century cabinet and "a whole lot of pictures" went in a couple of hours.
The antiquarian book stands were crowded on Wednesday morning. Illustrated children's books have sold well so far at the Killeen House display. Further up the aisle P. & B. Rowan have a valuable collection of J.S. Crone's papers (including letters from Yeats and O'Casey).
Ib Jorgensen is here, selling a variety of Irish and European paintings from £400 to £45,000. Business has been brisk - eight paintings were sold at the pre-sale event but work by Yeats McKelvey, Leech, Wilks, Henry and Lavery are still looking for buyers.
Items much too big to fit into the average diningroom or garden dominate some displays. A five-foot-high terracotta stone urn, which took a truck and forklift to manoeuvre into the RDS, was sold soon after the fair opened for £10,500.
For anyone with ideas of grandeur, Upper Court Manor Antiques are displaying a drawing of a magnificent 18th-century portico by Francis Johnston, who also designed the GPO and Aras an Uachtarain. The firm are offering this work for £45,000.
A scattering of foreigners were around on opening day and purposefully buying. Portable items, such as paintings and antique jewellery, are their main targets, and Gerald Clancy's cut-glass chandeliers are selling well.
Throughout the fair it is the unusual items that are receiving the most attention. This is because middle-aged buyers, having furnished their houses, are now looking for smaller decorative pieces, suggests Jane Forsythe of Forsythes of Frances Street. She has a wonderful bronze angel candelabra for £4,500 and a 19th-century Cantonese ginger jar for £5,500. The fair ends tomorrow.
