Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

Two single-owner collections built up over lifetimes were well received at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on February 5-6.

Good times at the Oxford rooms of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium), when all bar one of 56 clocks got away almost all going comfortably above estimates.

After re-booting the moribund firm of Hutchinson Scott (20% buyer’s premium) in 2016, former dealers Michael Scott and Paul Hodson have now bought their premises at Embsay Mill at Skipton.

Given a surprising £200-300 estimate, a George IV brass and glass carriage clock was one of the stars of McTear’s (23% buyer’s premium) Glasgow sale on February 1.

A rich spread of American, European and Asian material is on offer at Thomaston Place’s latest Winter Weekend auction to be held over three days from March 1-3 in Thomaston, Maine.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Gold rush era jewellery from Down Under is a rare visitor to UK salerooms but, remarkably, several pieces have appeared for sale in recent months.

Among the more eagerly contested entries to the Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) sale on January 24 was a late 19th century replica of the Alfred Jewel: the great example of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing found in Somerset in 1693 and today one of the most popular exhibits at the Ashmolean Museum.

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.

A rare Longines centre seconds military wristwatch – a type developed in 1944 for the rigours of airborne work by the Research & Development team of the War Department – sold for a multi-estimate £11,200 at Barbara Kirk (15% buyer’s premium) in Penzance on November 27 last year.

The opening 96 lots of the sale at Skinner (23% buyer’s premium) in Boston on December 4 were from the stock of the former New York dealership Edith Weber Antique Jewelry.

Deemed a little ostentatious in some circles, tiaras have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, particularly in Russia and the Baltic states where jeans and a diamond fascinator are de rigueur at informal high-society events.

A local family that could trace a clear line back to the 1750 was the consignor of this gold, white enamel and citrine mourning ring to Henry Adams in Chichester.

Pictured here are two exceptional pieces of Art Deco jewellery sold by Christie’s Paris (25% buyer’s premium) for multi-estimate sums on December 4.

Sapphires have been mined in Burma (now Myanmar) for over a millennium, the stones admired for their colour saturation and dark hues.

Jean Ghika, global director of jewellery at Bonhams, closed out 2018 on a positive note.

A selection of 10 stand-out jewellery lots offered at auction in February-April 2019.

Although the centre never closed during the Crossrail project, as that work winds down Grays Antiques Market now has a fresh chance to showcase the many exceptional dealers based in the Edwardian building on Davies Street in London. As one might expect near Bond Street, period jewellery, from Roman rings to 1970s retro, is the main stock in trade.

Included in Cordier Auctions’ large mixed-discipline sale to be held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on February 9 will be a group of four clocks that once came from the Chicago dealer Lee Benkendorf.