Woolley & Wallis will sell the Anne Shannon collection of more than 350 pieces in a stand-alone sale in Salisbury on October 31.
Shannon, a retired doctor and member of the Society of Jewellery Historians, began collecting Georg Jensen silver jewellery while a GP in London in the 1960s. She was later advised and guided in her quarry by Michael von Essen, long-time head of Jensen’s antiques department and museum in Copenhagen.
However, while volunteering a day a week at Goldsmiths Hall to help in the archiving of Omar Ramsden design drawings, Shannon began to collect Ramsden jewellery. Frequent visits to London antique jewellery dealers and auctions widened her subject knowledge and sphere of interest.
Ultimately, while owning more than 100 pieces by Jensen and 35 by Ramsden and Ramsden and Carr, Shannon came to embrace a range of designers and makers from the period whose work formed sub-sections within an increasingly important collection.
Alongside works by Giuliano, Castellani, Mellilo, and Falize are 26 pieces by Child & Child and others by a British jewellers working in the Arts & Crafts or Art Nouveau idiom from Murrle Bennett to Dorrie Nossiter.
