Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

MADAM – I was interested to see the reference to the Canning Jewel (News, ATG No 2390).

With ‘on the premises’ country house contents sales now so rare, the more usual practice is for the better pieces to be removed to saleroom bases.

For antiquities aficionados, the pinnacle of Christie’s ‘Classic Week’ in New York was its single-owner offering of 40 exquisitely carved intaglios and cameos hailing from the ancient world.

A Renaissance revival jewel perhaps from the same workshop as the famous Canning Jewel has sold at auction in Salisbury.

The chain of artistic influences that led to the decoration of a gold-enamel watch made by John Kenable of Frith Street in London in c.1800 can be traced back to 1766.

At the turn of the 20th century, work by Italian émigré Andrew Grima (1921-2007) or the London jeweller Kutchinsky was on the periphery of the collecting world – still languishing in the bottom of jewellery boxes or, worse, the melting pot.

This trio of clocks – all classic collectors’ pieces – went well above estimate at spring sales.

It was on the battlefield of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 that the name of James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797-1868) first became etched into public memory.

A Victorian hardstone and gold necklace and similar brooch sold for an unexpected £7500 (estimate £600-800) at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne on April 11.

Seemingly, whatever fashion website or Instagram influencer you choose, the brooch is this season’s ‘on-trend’ accessory. One might argue that in the trade, demand for good period examples of this ‘forgotten’ or ‘old fashioned’ item of jewellery has never really gone away.

This French mother-of-pearl and gold pin formed as a daisy comes in a fitted box signed for George Fouquet (1862-1957).

Although unmarked, this gold, enamel and diamond brooch offered by Bonhams Knightsbridge (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) was almost certainly made by Tiffany in New York c.1890.

The May 11-12 Geneva sale conducted by Phillips in association with watch consultancy Bacs & Russo includes one of the most complicated wristwatches of the pre-war era: the Vacheron Constantin minute repeater with retrograde calendar from 1940.

Watch collectors priced out of the market for blue-chip branded sports models are finding value for money elsewhere.

The ‘Big Red’ Daytona reference 6265 is one of the most desirable Rolex chronographs from the 1980s.

Universal Genève helped change the horological landscape in 1934 with the introduction of an affordable two-button Compur chronograph – a line that continued into the 1940s.

A pad top bracket clock signed Mary Wignall and Sons Ormskirk is included at The Arley Hall Antiques & Fine Art Fair, the next event from Galloway Antiques Fairs.

Heuer watches, steeped in racing history, are among the ‘secondary’ or ‘niche’ Swiss brands that have entered the mainstream collecting arena in the past decade.

It was during the First World War that the convenience of the wristwatch began to replace the pocketwatch but it really came into its own with the production of bespoke ‘tool’ watches for submariners and airmen later in the century.