Dreweatts

An impressive Edwardian aquamarine and diamond brooch with a provenance to the first lady to take her seat as an MP in the UK sold for £54,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at auction this month.

Silver across five centuries caught the eye at provincial sales in February.

Dreweatts’ Modern and Contemporary art sale in Newbury on April 3 will offer a range of Modern British pictures, including a selection of St Ives School group works. However, one of the main highlights in this category is a wartime painting by John Armstrong (1893-1973) which carries an estimate of £20,000-30,000.

With vendors now well adjusted to realities of the market, the demand for standard Georgian furniture is unspectacular but steady.

Christmas has little, if any, effect on collectors of vintage and antique toys, but that doesn’t stop auctioneers mounting festive season specials.

While the market shows increasingly discerning tastes, quality definitely counts at auction.

The two sewing boxes modelled as houses shown below were made for different markets but both had strong appeal to UK collectors.

On the market for the first time in at least 60 years, and in some cases for more than a century, a small collection of 17th and 18th century silver accounted for a fraction of the lots but 20% of the total at the two-day winter sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (24% buyer’s premium).

An unusual dish from the workshop of Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845-1927) sold for £18,000 at Woolley & Wallis on November 14. But this was not the only example of top-tier Meiji cloisonné for sale last month.

Among the most coveted of all the standard Chinese export porcelain designs is the so-called ‘Rockefeller’ pattern or Palace ware.

Including, as it did, pieces from Alnwick Castle, an ‘attic sale’ based on the Duke of Northumberland’s home was guaranteed to generate more interest than many similarly titled auctions.

A recent online sale that ran to just 35 lots and closed on October 25 offered a single-owner collection of works by the Victorian explorer and writer, Sir Richard Burton.

Dr Anne Shannon would no doubt have admired these three pieces of turn of the century jewellery sold at UK regional salerooms in recent weeks.

This amethyst and cultured pearl ring and brooch is by Stuart Devlin (1931-2018) – the Australian-born designer and craftsman the Duke of Edinburgh described as “probably the most original and creative goldsmith and silversmith of his time, and one of the greats of all time”.