After a lapse of a year owing to the refurbishment of The Mere Golf Resort & Spa, The Antiques Dealers Fair Limited returns to host the Luxury Antiques Weekend at The Mere, in association with Bentley Manchester, to be held at The Mere Golf Resort & Spa, Chester Road, Mere, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 6LJ from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 January 2013. Set in the heart of Cheshire countryside and close to Chester, Manchester and Liverpool, this is the ideal location for a boutique-style antiques fair offering the best antiques and fine art. Visitors can either enjoy the fair for the day or take advantage of the new state-of-the-art hotel and plan a weekend away.

Around 30 specialist dealers are offering a wide range of disciplines from paintings, furniture, 19th century and contemporary sculpture, rugs and carpets, clocks, jewellery, silver, Art Deco and Art Nouveau ceramics and glass and much more. This is an ideal opportunity for collectors, interior decorators, private and corporate buyers to enjoy and buy from a superb variety of quality works of art in very relaxed surroundings.

The fair is brimming with highlights including a rare 18th century Sheraton period mahogany bow-fronted secretaire bookcase, c 1795 from Freshfords Fine Antiques of Bath selling for £23,500. Sharing Freshfords’ stand is Ottery Antiques, furniture dealers and restorers based in Somerset who are new to the fairs circuit. They are bringing a mahogany linen press by Gillows of Lancaster, c 1772 for which they are asking £12,850. Other furniture dealers at the fair include S & S Timms Antiques showing an extremely rare early 19th century Anglo-Indian marblewood and ebony cupboard on chest, c 1820 with a price tag of £12,500, as well as Nicholas Arkell of Walton House Antiques and Melody Antiques.

The fair includes a broad selection of fine art such as Strachan Fine Art of Kensington, London showing an oil, ‘Girl playing a lyre in a classical garden’ by Francis Davis Millet (1846-1912) for £12,750. An American, he became an international artistic and literary figure and was host to the Broadway colony of artists in England. He died on the Titanic. From Elford Fine Art is a delightful oil, ‘Pride of Place’ by Arthur Wardle RI (1864-1949), one of the most popular British animal painters. Across the water from Cheshire, is an oil of ‘The Harbour at Douglas, Isle of Man’ by Joseph Wrightson McIntyre (fl 1866-1888) from Cambridge Fine Art for £3,500. Local contemporary art dealer, Jo Bennett Original Pictures from Cheshire is showing a strong selection of artists from the North West including Geoffrey Key, a great favourite amongst Cheshire collectors. More works on her stand are by Cheshire artists David Porter, Graham Lee and Shirley Cock.

Other specialist dealers include Richard Price & Associates, Richard being a well- known face on the BBC Antiques Roadshow as the clock expert and Olde Time, both showing a wide selection of clocks, barometers, longcase clocks and other automata. Solo Antiques from Lancashire has two exceptional pâte de verre pieces, a ‘Papillons’ coupe and a vase ‘Sorbier’ by French glass designer Gabriel Argy-Rousseau (1885-1953).

A very special piece of jewellery on T Robert’s stand is a charming early Irish cannetille brooch in the form of a harp made in the 1820s, priced in the region of £5,000. The brooch is decorated with three Colombian emeralds shaped as a shamrock and set with 13 large natural pearls with a locket in the back. Plaza is bringing bold and dramatic pieces of vintage jewellery by names such as Tiffany & Co and Van Cleef & Arpels, with classic and antique jewellery and objets d’art from St James/Authentiques of Manchester.

Once again, local organisation The Christie is the fair’s chosen charity. The charitable foundation raises money to fund projects at The Christie, which are outside the scope of the NHS.