Features

The 1968 Mexico Summer Olympics were the first Games to be staged in Latin America.

This William III bronze wool weight cast with the royal arms is more than twice the size of most, weighing in at 14lb.

Roman Cieślewicz (1930-96) and Jan Lenica (1928-2001) were both founders of the Polish School of Posters, the influential and creative artistic movement that sprang up under strict Soviet rule.

Furniture and objects associated with a rustic or farmhouse aesthetic have gained popularity in recent decades.

A preserved and framed collection with a great provenance dispersed at auction showed the wider strength of a market often dominated by the familiar stars

Carved wooden sculptural fragments are a market strength.

This table lighter offered by Great Western Auctions (24% buyer’s premium) of Glasgow in the Summer Two Day Fine Art & Antiques Auction had marks for the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Co, London 1916, making it one of the earliest of its type.

A Henry VIII silver and parcel gilt apostle spoon, stamped to the stem with a distinctive maker’s mark of a heart in a conforming heart and dated London 1532, caused quite a stir when it appeared at Canterbury Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium).

A striking pair of William IV silver open salts by Paul Storr (London 1835) came for sale at Chorley’s (28.2% buyer’s premium inc VAT) latest biannual sale of Fine Jewellery, Silver, Gold and Watches.

A rare example of Norfolk Charles I silver – a seal-top spoon made by the patriarch of the famous Haslewood silversmithing dynasty – sold for £3600 at a recent sale of Silver and Objects of Vertu at Chiswick Auctions (26% buyer’s premium) in London.

The market has certainly been challenging but recent results allied with metal prices give encouraging grounds for optimism

As previewed in ATG No 2648, Bonhams’ Fine Decorative Arts sale at New Bond Street on July 5 featured this rare Elizabethan silver-gilt tankard, London 1592, with maker’s mark 'IB' possibly for John Brodie (Brode), or John Bottomley.

Dreweatts’ (26/25% buyer’s premium) Fine Jewellery, Silver, Watches and Objects of Vertu sale of June 18 offered only 35 lots of silver but all were good quality and many rare in form.

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.

The Fine Jewellery sale at Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury on July 10-11 features many fine antique items such as these two documentary pieces.

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.

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.

Highlights from the London Jewels sale at Bonhams on June 13

Watch chatelaine offered at auction was produced by a man who created many works for the Hanoverian household

Fabergé’s rock crystal, platinum, silver and diamond ‘ice flower’ jewels were made by the workmaster Albert Holmström, c.1913-14, after designs made by his niece Alma Pihl (1888-1976).