Auctions

The growing demand in recent years to own pictures by women artists has brought this long-overlooked area of the art market to the fore. In an auction at Cirencester auction house Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) two works by women painters stood out.

Our weekly selection from salerooms.

The 1961 International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery, organised jointly by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the Victoria and Albert Museum, was the world’s first international display of contemporary jewellery.

Among the top-priced clocks sold in October was a rare late-17th/early-18th century musical bracket clock by Francis Robinson of London.

Out of favour for a generation, grand tour and ancient intaglios and cameos are enjoying a return to form.

Of the more than 200 jewellery lots for sale at Dawson’s (23% buyer’s premium) in Maidenhead on October 26, a 15ct gold double bracelet (below) displaying Victorian engineering ingenuity was among the most contested.

A letter accompanying this gold, diamond and fire opal brooch, formed as a columbine, below, confirms it was part of the International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery held at The Goldsmiths Hall, London, in 1961.

Jewellery owned by Marie Valerie Hapsburg, the favourite daughter of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, will be auctioned by Dorotheum in Vienna on November 27.

A hitherto unknown portrait of Nelson sold for three times the top estimate at the Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) auction on November 5.

The November 18 sale titled California Jewelry held by Doyle New York on the West Coast includes a group of French Art Nouveau pieces described as ‘Property from an Important Jewel Collector’. Several display the plique-à-jour (‘letting in daylight’) enamelling technique revived in the late 19th century.

A welcome trend in the jewellery market has been the resurgence of the brooch. In October, when Baroness Brenda Hales gave her verdict on Boris Johnson’s ‘illegal’ prorogation of Parliament, what many social media users really wanted to know was ‘where did she get that spider brooch?’

Musket that fired the first shot in 1775 American revolution battle appears in US saleroom.

Drizen Dickens lots notch up notable results despite some higher-value unsolds.

Bid to a record £20,000 at a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on September 26 was a beautifully bound example of Piranesi’s Campus Martius Antiquae Urbis.

This small-scale wall mirror by Line Vautrin from c.1950 measures approximately 15in (38cm) in diameter.

This early-Victorian bracelet comprising eight portrait miniatures and four unusual eye miniatures set in gold is inscribed on the back with a series of identifying names, including that of Josias Nottidge, the children’s father, and his wife Emily. It tells the story of a Victorian scandal.

Among several auctions devoted to Old Master and 19th century paintings taking place in Paris this month will be the 66-lot sale held at Sotheby’s on November 19.

The impact of institutions on the collector-dominated market in fans was witnessed when the best-seller at a dedicated Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) auction went to a museum.

Well placed in Tyne & Wear to receive a number of miners’ safety lamps from the old Durham and Northumberland coalfields, Boldon Auction Galleries (17.5% buyer’s premium) was presented with something of a mystery in the form of the lamp pictured here.

Focus on one of only two notable women painters to be associated with the Norwich School.