Auctions

Former Bonhams and Christie’s specialist Mark Wilkinson is to join Sworders to launch new specialist sales at the Essex auction house. Wilkinson spent over 30 years at Christie’s and led its ‘interiors’ auctions at South Kensington.

The rivière – one of the most popular and enduring styles of necklace to come out of the Georgian period – features an endless line of matched or subtly graduated gems set within inconspicuous collets. However, as Marielle Whiting at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury points out, seldom are they equals.

Marielle Barde, Edgar Degas’ great-niece, was one of the heirs and vendors of the Degas studio drawings and attended Christie’s Paris sale. This was the second such dispersal the family had held in these rooms of artworks from her famous great-uncle following a house move some decades ago.

A collection of ethical maxims, proverbs and moral reflections compiled by Solomon ibn Gabirol and translated from the Arabic by Judah ibn Tibbon was printed for the first time in Venice in 1484 as Mivchar HaPeninim (Choice Pearls).

Much like René Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s successful career as a glassmaker overshadowed his genius as a goldsmith. Both men created jewellery that have come to define Art Nouveau in France and North America.

This pastel portrait by Maurice Quentin de la Tour is the potential star of the auction taking place at Drouot held by Kalck & Associés.

Pinball machines, Francis Bacon paintbrushes and bear skeletons: is Essex ready for an Out of the Ordinary sale? Sworders managing director Guy Schooling believes so. He has just hired former Bonhams and Christie’s specialist Mark Wilkinson to launch a series of specialist sales at the Stansted Mountfitchet auction house.

This Tiffany gold necklace and earclip suite composed of textured rose petal links by Angela Cummings (c.1944) sold for £10,200 at Bonhams Knightsbridge (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on March 15.

A textbook Renaissance style jewel by Carlo Giuliano (1831-95) led a strong jewellery offering at Thomas Watson (24% buyer’s premium) in Darlington on March 21.

The collective noun ‘petroliania’ may be unfamiliar to some readers, but it’s a useful and profitable one as evidenced at the biannual sales held by Chippenham Auctions’ sister-auction house Richard Edmonds (20% buyer’s premium).

An Edwardian emerald, pearl and diamond pendant by Carrington & Co, London sold for £24,500 (estimate £6000-10,000) to an online bidder at Stacey’s (20% buyer’s premium) in Rayleigh on March 20. The central heart-shaped old-cut stone weighs 3.5cts and was given a colour grade of K/L and a VS clarity.

Three high-quality sales from the north to the south gave a cheerful air to spring. The catalogue at Tennants in North Yorkshire pretty much covered the range but in Sussex and Buckinghamshire the emphasis was on furniture.

Generally regarded as a guide of things to come, the Spring Fine Sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) at Leyburn on March 24-25 left auctioneer Jeremy Pattison in an upbeat mood.

A 600-lot sale devoted to Asian art held by Tremont auctions in Newton, Massachusetts, on April 23 will include a 4ft (1.2m) high vase made in the late 19th century.

A late 19th century/early 20th century ruby cameo and baroque pearl pendant once formed part of the celebrated jewellery collection assembled by Ganna Walska (1887-1984). It sold for a multi-estimate £55,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of fine jewels in Bond Street on March 22.

Otto von Guericke’s Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) magdeburgica de vacuo spatio… of 1672 describes the experiments in which he produced an air pump able to create a vacuum and thus demonstrate the pressure exerted by our atmosphere.

In the chapter titled ‘Modern Jewellery’ in her taste-making book, The Art of Beauty (1878), English writer Mary Eliza Haweis references the “artistic appreciation of good forms and good work” she found at Messrs Phillips of Cockspur Street.

While Degas’ youthful drawings produced some notable individual prices in Drawings Week, it is the classic charcoal and pastel drawings of Parisian dancers and workers from his mature years that are the most commercially popular (the current work on paper record is the premium-inclusive $37m/ £23.35m/€29m paid for Danseuse au repos of 1879 at Sotheby’s New York in 2008).

A carte-de-visite album of the 1860s containing a previously unknown photograph of the abolitionist heroine Harriet Tubman was one of the high points of the March 30 sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

From noble jewels to semi-precious gems, a show in May will celebrate a ‘golden period’ of Portuguese jewellery in the 18th century. Here we preview the exhibition and then present other recent and forthcoming sale highlights.