Shalbourne

To help the community of Shalbourne celebrate the completion of phase one of its village hall improvement works, Jonathan Pratt, also known as JP, managing director of Dreweatts 1759, presented an antiques evening before Christmas.

Jonathan commenced the evening with a brief outline of his background and how his passion for antiques had developed. He recounted some highly amusing anecdotes relating to his auctioning and valuation successes and the occasional failure. Jonathan brought a number of treasures from the Dreweatts’ vault including a Fabergé egg – well not quite - it was part of a collection of fakes but still solid gold.

After a short interval, during which Jonathan cut a delicious celebratory cake, he went on to give fascinating descriptions of items brought along by the audience. These were varied and ranged from a Lalique vase, through to items such as a Chinese ginger jar, a mid 19th-century skirt lifter and Meissen figurines. There was even a handmade wrought iron nail! Jonathan awarded a prize for the object that he considered to be the most interesting which was a pair of 20th-century figures of a stork and a crane.