Auctioneers

Sotheby’s is to test the temperature of the market for Japanese art with its first dedicated sale in London for more than a decade.

Derbyshire’s Hansons Auctioneers is opening a second London location.

London coin dealership Sovereign Rarities will conduct its first auction on September 25.

This agate, enamel and gemset cameo brooch carved with the profile of a classical maiden is signed verso for Georges Bissinger.

Victoria, Princess Royal (1840-1901), shed her first baby tooth at the age of seven while the royal family was a guest of the Duke of Abercorn at Ardverikie, by Loch Laggan. Her father Prince Albert tugged the tooth free himself and had it set in gold and enamel as a brooch. The milk tooth formed the blossom of thistle.

Far more fluent in the language of jewellery and stones, the Georgians and Victorians would have immediately made the link between snakes and eternal love. The ouroboros – a serpent swallowing its own tail – was commonly understood as a symbol of eternity.

A final selection from the extremely varied Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) major summer sale ranges from the scientific works of such giants as Newton and Galileo to the first jigsaw puzzle.

On September 18-19 Sotheby’s will offer an American library on the history of computing formed by the late Erwin Tomash (1921-2012), a sale that runs to 944 lots in all but is divided into two sections.

Complete with 48 cards and rules sheet, and still in its original, if slightly fragile case with printed label, Panko, or Votes for Women… is a sort of ‘Rummy’- inspired card game pitching Suffragists against Anti-Suffragists.

Gardiner Houlgate in Wiltshire is dubbing its upcoming sale “the UK’s largest-ever auction of guitars”.

August is the month when Scotland takes it up a notch while the rest of the art world has a breather.

Just a month after the Second World War, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was in Paris working at the lithography workshop of Fernand Mourlot (1895-1988). It was the beginning of a collaboration that would last almost three decades and produce more than 400 different graphic images and editions.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

A remarkable collection of early rings was offered by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Etwall, Derbyshire, this summer.