Brooch

ALTHOUGH there were no blockbusters at the 778-lot February 20 sale at Charterhouse (15% buyer's premium), neither were there many casualties, with 86 per cent of the sale finding buyers.

Two historic, finely carved Mughal emeralds were the highlights of Christie’s Arts of India sale in London on September 24. Topping the bill was a 17th century wine cup made from a 408.5ct carved emerald mounted in gold and enamel that sold to a Middle Eastern buyer on the phone for £1.6m (plus 19.5/12% buyer’s premium).

Les Ecosses have always had a certain cachet in France and it was the Parisian jewellers Chaumet who, in the 1950s, made this brooch, right, in the form of bagpipes, the naturally dimpled baroque pearl used imaginatively as the bag, the pipes adorned by single cut diamonds and turquoise stones. At Sotheby’s Gleneagles sale it sold to a Scottish private bidder at £4000.

Sotheby’s announcement of the discovery of a cache of Nelson memorabilia that has been hidden away for almost 200 years has generated huge media interest.