Bonhams

It has been 50 years since the Beatles released their eighth studio album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to universal acclaim.

Following the glass and British ceramics auction, which takes place in Bonhams’ Knightsbridge rooms this week, the auction house holds its main European ceramics sale of the summer in New Bond Street on June 14.

The March 29 sale by Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of books from the library at Glyn Cywarch featured many highlights.

This Tiffany gold necklace and earclip suite composed of textured rose petal links by Angela Cummings (c.1944) sold for £10,200 at Bonhams Knightsbridge (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 15.

In the chapter titled ‘Modern Jewellery’ in her taste-making book, The Art of Beauty (1878), English writer Mary Eliza Haweis references the “artistic appreciation of good forms and good work” she found at Messrs Phillips of Cockspur Street.

With every one of the 531 lots sold, from an oak gateleg table that opened proceedings to a 1925 Douglas motorcycle, the March 29 Bonhams (25/20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of contents from Glyn Cywarch, a Welsh home of the Lords Harlech, was one of those ‘white-glove’ sales in which auction rooms take such pride.

At the end of an article penned for the Regional History Society titled Furniture Terminology in Post-Medieval Middle Class Inventories, the late Victor Chinnery wrote that any full glossary on the subject should include, not just furniture, but also pottery, glass, metalwork and architectural fittings.

London sale offers ground-breaking grammatical studies from 16th and 17th centuries.

Calculations and notes predicting the orbit of what at the time was a newly discovered and very large asteroid, Juno, brought a bid of £7000 at Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 1.

Making its third saleroom appearance in 30-odd years, the portrait in oils of Isaac Newton shown here is one of at least a dozen made in his lifetime.

Exceptional items star as Bonhams’ oak sales face the challenge of reduced space and lots

Through surviving examples of Charles II beadwork, it is possible to catch a glimpse of the splendid colours of Stuart England.

Among the most eagerly contested sections of the Bonhams sale was the 22 lots from the Golding Barrett Collection.

Folksy 18th and 19th century vernacular lighting retains a strong following.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning lots fall flat... but annotated Dorian Gray leaves treble the estimate

A crease that runs around the lower part of the dust jacket detracts somewhat from the appeal of a first impression copy of the first of Ian Fleming’s Bond books, Casino Royale of 1953, but it sold for £16,000 in a March 1 sale held by Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).