Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

Three Victorian bangles were among the most popular lots of Dreweatts’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of Fine Jewellery, Silver, Watches and Objects of Vertu.

The London entrepreneur James Cox (c.1723-1800) is best known as a specialist in the intricate clockwork curios encrusted with gold, silver and jewel, referred to as ‘sing-songs.’

A superb collection of 61 pocket watches drew strong demand at a Surrey auction last week as remote bidders, using the phone and online platforms, competed for some outstanding 17th, 18th and 19th century examples.

Battered and dust-engrained when found in a basement during a Lake District house clearance, an early unsigned brass lantern clock generated great excitement at Penrith Farmers’ & Kidd’s (18% buyer’s premium).

An early 16th century ring found by a metal detectorist in East Yorkshire has sold at auction for £36,000.

Second-dibs sales at regional salerooms – those that follow after a major London auctioneer has cherry-picked the contents of a stately country house – can sometimes acquire the slighting epithet of ‘crumbs from a rich man’s table’.

This octagonal brass box, decorated with 17 micro-mosaics featuring subjects from classical antiquity, was created by Augusto Castellani of the famous firm of Roman jewellers founded by his father Fortunato.

“A fabulous example of how an auctioneer can sell these collections so successfully outside of London,” said Dreweatts’ (25% buyer’s premium) managing director Jonathan Pratt in the wake of Donnington Priory’s latest auction of European furniture and works of art.

Throughout the 19th century, picture clocks were popular in many German-speaking parts of Europe.

MADAM – Reading about the unfortunate theft of a Handley & Moore bracket clock from the shop of Patrick Sandberg on Kensington Church Street on February 3 (ATG No 2429) reminded me of the clock (pictured below) that had sadly been stolen from my parents’ home in Burford, Oxfordshire, in 1984.

Fancy committing to abstaining from “gaming, drinking, fornication” for a whole seven years?

Falling short of ambitious hopes but leading the day at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) first sale of 2020 was a fine English Golden Age longcase clock.

Time is of the essence in the story of Speed Menefee (1879-1968), the shortest-serving city mayor in US history – and original owner of a pocket watch offered at the Chester Decorative Antiques & Art Fair.