Auctioneers

A collection of close to 100 Arts & Crafts belt buckles formed just part of the remarkable Anthony Gardner collection sold by Bellmans (25% buyer’s premium) in Wisborough Green, West Sussex, on April 16.

The Parisian workshop of Henri Picq does not have quite the name recognition of Cartier or LaCloche, but it was nonetheless responsible for supplying both houses with some of the most exceptional jewellery of the early 20th century.

Forming part of a small body of work relating to Malta, this vibrant oil by Julian Trevelyan (1910-88) was the runaway star in a Modern Art & Design sale at Keys (22% buyer’s premium).

Wirral-born photographer John Deakin (1912-72) is best-known for his uncompromisingly honest portraits of the Soho art scene of the 1950s and 60s.

A flintlock duck gun hailed as exceptional by Olympia Auctions fully lived up to its billing when it shot past an estimate of £60,000-80,000 to hammer down at £380,000 on June 26.

On the market for the first time in over half a century, a Roman marble copy of the Crouching Venus hammered at $130,000 (£103,000) in the Freeman’s Hindman (27/21/15% buyer’s premium) auction on May 23.

Highlights from the London Jewels sale at Bonhams on June 13

The Dreweatts (26% buyer’s premium) sale on June 18 included two Cartier brooches commissioned by Sir Stephen Courtauld to designs inspired by Eltham Palace.

In a private collection since it was last sold in 1991, one of only two known autograph manuscripts by author and journalist Albert Camus of his masterpiece L’Etranger was sold by Tajan (23/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Paris on June 5.

Serpenti jewels, which followed the launch of Bulgari’s signature gold Tubogas bracelets in the late 1940s, were featured in Vogue and other fashion magazines on countless occasions in the Sixties.

Two days needed to disperse items collected over generations thanks to biscuit production success

The Rare Books sale at Ketterer Kunst (25/20/19% buyer’s premium) in Hamburg on May 27 included this first edition dedication copy of Das Kapital (1867).

The McClure Arctic Expedition of 1850 was one of the Franklin rescue missions but ended up with the ironic fate of getting trapped themselves.