Woolley & Wallis

A popular form of gift or memento to loved ones as troops left for the front was a ‘sweetheart brooch’.

The Hundred Days Offensive broke the back of German resistance in 1918 and by November the Allies were surging well beyond the once static Western Front.

The sale of the Anne Shannon collection of British and Continental designer jewellery will live long in the memory.

Woolley & Wallis followed the Shannon collection with a mixed-owner sale on November 1. Together the auctions brought a premium-inclusive £2.1m.

The white-glove sale of the Shannon collection of jewellery at Woolley & Wallis was topped at £22,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) by a gold bracelet by Omar Ramsden.

Headlines about antiquities today usually follow two paths: either highlighting the issue of looting or focusing on the huge sums treasures of the ancient world can command.

If the work of the best modern and contemporary artists is typically confined to a small coterie of London auctioneers, then the same cannot be said of the best modern and contemporary ceramics.

Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury will sell an important oil by Chinese contemporary artist Yang Fei Yun (b.1954) next month. It comes for sale from the charity established by Body Shop founder Dame Anita Roddick (1942-2007).

The biannual world tour of tribal lands – Alaska to New Zealand via Arizona, Africa and Taiwan – organised by auctioneer Will Hobbs at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) offered a global view of what is an active, if often unpredictable, field.

Collectors and sellers of antique ivory are being told that the ivory ban is unlikely to become law before spring 2019, a longer lead-time than originally thought.