Blasts from the past

Two dealers are remembered at Sworders, through a painting by a limbless artist and a Soviet state dinner service

- Huon Mallalieu

THIS week’s column will look both backwards and forwards, although, once again, one cannot be certain that the future will deliver what is planned. The major early-year international fairs—the Winter Show in New York, BRAFA in Brussels, TEFAF in Maastricht and the Paris Salon du Dessin— have all taken sensible decisions to postpone or cancel, but, at the time of writing, one or two more local events are still intending to open in reality, as well as online.

A backward look to the Interiors sale held by Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex last month provides an opportunity to tip the hat to two notable antique dealers, Peter Crofts, who died in 2001, and Christopher MartinZakheim, who died on Christmas Day in 2018.

Crofts was born in 1924 near Wisbech in the Fens, where his family were farmers. He joined the Fleet Air Arm and, in 1945, was sent to Texas for training. Just before his 21st birthday, the Corsair F4U he was piloting caught fire during take-off. His legs were amputated below the knee and he spent 3½ years in hospital.

He set up as a general antique dealer in Wisbech with his wife, Pat, whom he married in 1950, and became a pillar of the British Antique Dealers’ Association. He was also a keen sailor in Amity, an elegant, 88-year old, clinker-built Norfolk beach boat.