According to Michael Roberts, there are two kinds of antiques dealer: buyers and sellers. For the 40-year-old Roberts, buying is the buzz and he sells reluctantly — and even then generally only to garden and interior designers.
So Christie’s sale of his architectural and garden ornament collection on September 27 will probably be a shock to his system. For the buying public, however, it offers a chance to view and buy 575 items which have filled the garden and house of the Bald Faced Stag Inn in Ashurst, Kent, where Roberts has lived for the past six years.
Collectors will have their eyes on the superb 18th and 19th-century English terracotta pieces — urns, statuary and architectural ornaments, in the hard buff-coloured earthenware perfected by Eleanor Coade — and on the decorative terracotta made in the early 20th century by the Compton Pottery. But there are also more modestly priced pieces, ranging from copper and bronze lanterns to metalwork gates, stone seats, cast-iron urns and weathervanes.
Everything has been collected by Roberts, whose love for antiques developed in his twenties when he worked for a builder in Italy.
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Michael Roberts collection of architectural and garden ornament auction, Bald Faced Stag, Ashurst, Kent; Sept 27, 10.30am. Viewing: Sept 24-26, 10am-5pm; entry to viewing and auction by catalogue only, £15 (admits two). To order a catalogue, call 020-7389 2820