Auctioneers

Solid selling punctuated by a number of estimate-eclipsing bids made the July 17-18 sale a very welcome return to business for Tennants (20% buyer’s premium).

Sold at £140,000 in the first of two early manuscript sales held by Bloomsbury Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on July 8 was a lot featured in the front page story in ATG No 2447.

Firsts of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have made as much as £115,000* at auction.

Around the year 1904, during the Second Period of Belleek production in Fermanagh, Ulster, designer William Harris designed the Five O’Clock pattern.

Estimated at £100-200 but sold for £2800 at Thomas Watson (25% buyer’s premium) in Darlington on August was a set of four Worcester parian menu holders.

A group of works of art from a country home once owned by members of the Rothschild family boosted the latest Woolley & Wallis auction.

The Scottish government has updated its guidance on face coverings.

Matthias Buchinger (1674-1740), the so-called ‘Little Man of Nuremberg’, was just 2ft 5in (74cm) tall. Born in Ansbach without legs and having truncated arms without fingers, he nonetheless excelled at many occupations associated with physical dexterity.

Two traditional drinking vessels brought surprising toasts to European craftsmen at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (23% buyer’s premium) in Exeter.

Some aspects of the traditional antiques market continue to perform with zest – and ‘folk art’ is among them.

Japonisme, the craze for Japanese art first described by the French critic and collector Philippe Burty in 1872, became a key part of Tiffany & Co’s jewellery oeuvre from c.1877.

Circumstances are quickly changing the way items are bought and sold at auction – but the first principles of quality, keen pricing and provenance still apply.

This brooch – an agate cameo in a diamond and enamel surround – has French assay marks for the Berlin-born, Paris-based historicist jeweller Jules Wièse (1818-90).

The highlight of Bonhams Australia’s (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) latest Jewels sale was this agate intaglio seal from the collection of Brisbane Catholic priest Father Peter Grice (1943-2019).

One of the highlights of Leonard Joel’s jewellery auction in Sydney on August 26 is this Art Deco platinum and diamond bracelet dated to c.1930 fashioned as an articulated line of geometric links of carré, baguette and circular cut diamonds weighing a total of approximately 33cts.

Alongside an extensive range of more conventional auction catalogue shots, Fellows has (since July 2019) been picturing every one of its fine jewellery lots being worn.

A number of higher-priced lots featured in a sale held by Hindman (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of Chicago this summer, where fine binding was very much in evidence on both individual volumes and sets.