Glassware

The sale of Scottish Works of Art & Whisky at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on August 17 included this remarkable mid-18th century Jacobite goblet.

TimeLine Auctions’ Antiquities sale includes a dozen good examples of Roman glass including this 3rd-5th century unguentarium with zigzag trail decoration.

During the administration of Rutherford Hayes, who served as the 19th President of the US from 1877-81, the White House commissioned a dinner service from the Haviland factory in Limoges.

This glass tumbler, pictured below, engraved with a crowned 'N' over a band of diamond cutting, contained in a tooled leather cylindrical travelling case, is of a type that accompanied Napoleon on campaign.

The firing glass featured in Auction Reports, ATG No 2553, that is inscribed 'IM 1779' was in all probability used by the Installed Master for that year.

A collection of glassware by the Moser company is to be offered by Neue Auctions in Ohio on July 30.

Among the very rarest bottles to appear for sale in recent months was a miniature shaft and globe in dark aqua glass, c.1650, sold in South Yorkshire.

Sealed wine bottles possess a powerful sense of time and place. For some collectors it is the regional connections that appeal most.

For reasons of both supply and economics not every collector of English 18th century drinking glasses gets to own a piece from the great Beilby enamelling workshop that operated at Amen Corner in Newcastle in the 1760s-70s.

Sealed examples with coats of arms, names, dates and places reveal a social history and give an ideal opportunity for genealogical research

Of all antique sealed bottles, those made for the All Souls College Common Room are probably the most prevalent.

This sealed and dated onion in olive green glass, below, comes with a handwritten scrap of paper inscribed 'George found [this bottle] when he dived into the Thames at Windsor'. The seal reads 'S Slater 1710'.

The Chinese government has written to a UK auction house to demand a halt to the sale of a silver hunting flask, taken from the Summer Palace when it was sacked by British troops in 1860 during the Second Opium War.

Simple white Wiener Werkstätte boxes epitomise fine design offered at trio of sales

The medallion of a kneeling slave asking the rhetorical question 'Am I Not A Man And A Brother?' was first made in 1787 on the founding of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

This remarkable Baccarat tantalus in the form of an elephant and howdah sold at Can$120,000 (£75,000) at an auction in Victoria, British Columbia.

Among the stand-out items at 'The Petworth Park Antiques & Fine Art Fair' are two Regency glass crown scent bottles made for the coronation of King George IV.

Lyon & Turnbull notes that while mascots made no functional contribution to a car, they “certainly added style, and generally have fared better over time than the cars to which they were mounted”.

I read with interest your informative report on the sale of Lalique perfume bottles (ATG No 2535). I was amazed at the huge prizes.