London

The practice of presenting gold and enamel swords and freedom boxes, already popular in England in the 18th century, became more widespread during the Napoleonic Wars.

Olympia Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) reported some significant overseas interest at its latest Fine Paintings, Works on Paper & Sculpture auction with almost a third of buyers from outside the UK.

The latest Old Master auctions in London posted the highest total for a series in this category in the capital since 2017.

Tribal Art London (TAL) is to take place in person this autumn thanks to the organisers of The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair stepping in with a venue.

Exhibitors taking part in London Art Week attracted visits from major museums including The Getty, British Museum, Museum of London, Museum of the Home, National Portrait Gallery and major US museums from San Francisco to Houston and Chicago to Baltimore.

An amazing penknife proved a cut above in a sale from the David Hayden-Wright collection of antique knives offered at west London saleroom Olympia Auctions.

New summer art fair to fill the void left by Masterpiece gains promising feedback from exhibitors.

A telephone exchange removed from Buckingham Palace during refurbishment 25 years ago sold in west London for £3000.

Like many scientists and eminent thinkers of the time, Isaac Newton was also a devout Christian who thought deeply about religious matters, as a manuscript sold at auction in New York reveals.

Interest in wireless telegraphy, that was piqued when Guglielmo Marconi successfully sent a message from Poldhu, Cornwall to St John’s, Newfoundland in 1910, prompted many amateurs to build and develop their own sets based on the ‘Coherer’ principle for sending and receiving Morse code.

This 15th century gold ring, set with a rhomb-shaped table-cut sapphire, is engraved with lilies and other flowers issuing from a crescent bowl.

A spate of jewellery-related crimes was reported in the last month, sparking further concerns for those in the trade.

The return last month on a sunlit June day of the annual Church Street Antiques Fair in Marylebone after a four-year absence was hailed as a cracker – with a call for this event to be a more regular occurrence.

A Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) portrait that made a record for any work sold at auction in Europe helped lift the latest series of Modern and Contemporary sales in London.

A roundup of news and events from around the trade