Jewellery

This agate, enamel and gemset cameo brooch carved with the profile of a classical maiden is signed verso for Georges Bissinger.

Victoria, Princess Royal (1840-1901), shed her first baby tooth at the age of seven while the royal family was a guest of the Duke of Abercorn at Ardverikie, by Loch Laggan. Her father Prince Albert tugged the tooth free himself and had it set in gold and enamel as a brooch. The milk tooth formed the blossom of thistle.

An exhibition dedicated to the colourful creations of modern jewellery designer Wendy Ramshaw (b.1939) runs at the Goldsmiths’ Fair in London from September 25-October 7.

A demi-parure of mid-18th century Swedish gold jewellery offered by Brightwells (22% buyer’s premium) in Leominster was accompanied by a painted portrait miniature of the original owner wearing the set. The miniature, although uninscribed, was dated 1845.

Far more fluent in the language of jewellery and stones, the Georgians and Victorians would have immediately made the link between snakes and eternal love. The ouroboros – a serpent swallowing its own tail – was commonly understood as a symbol of eternity.

Ahead of its season-opening September 18 jewellery sale, Chiswick Auctions invited Jessica Diamond, the suitably-named jewellery editor for 'Condé Nast Traveller', to pick her top 10 lots from the catalogue.

Forthcoming jewellery auction highlights at home and abroad – from the first ‘smart’ watch to the first female mayor in the British Empire.

A remarkable collection of early rings was offered by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) in Etwall, Derbyshire, this summer.

A major collection of late 19th and early 20th century jewellery amassed by a Buckinghamshire collector over half a century will come to auction this autumn.

Chosen as the front-cover illustration to Paul Atterbury and John Benjamin’s 'The Jewellery and Silver of HG Murphy' (2005), this gemset pendant also provided Woolley & Wallis’ latest Jewellery and Watches sale with its showcase lot.

This Tudor period gold finger ring with the initials RB was found by a detectorist on land to the west of Crewkerne in 2017.

Jewellery dealer Cornelia Perquin of Precious Flora is no stranger to antiques fairs, but this month she is branching out. She will be offering her selection of antique and vintage flower jewellery in a slightly different setting: the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant and Art Fair.

A hairwork bracelet offered at auction was inscribed to a gold mount: From the Mane of the Charger Copenhagen which carried the Duke of Wellington 18 successive hours on the 18th June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo.

Woolley & Wallis is currently selling across a number of sales a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

Legend has it that, while on safari in Africa with her lover and employer Louis Cartier, Jeanne Toussaint spotted a panther and immediately exclaimed: “Onyx, diamonds, emeralds – a brooch!” The Cartier range of feline jewels was born.