Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

A major collection of late 19th and early 20th century jewellery amassed by a Buckinghamshire collector over half a century will come to auction this autumn.

Private bidders were overtaken as dealers found warmth in the best traditional furniture and chattels offered at auction.

Chosen as the front-cover illustration to Paul Atterbury and John Benjamin’s 'The Jewellery and Silver of HG Murphy' (2005), this gemset pendant also provided Woolley & Wallis’ latest Jewellery and Watches sale with its showcase lot.

Over 20 years ago, leading art and antiques dealers in the picturesque Bavarian city of Bamberg came up with the idea of holding a coordinated summer sales exhibition.

Wristwatch expert Adrian Hailwood has joined Dreweatts as a senior specialist.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

A selection of wristwatch previews.

This Tudor period gold finger ring with the initials RB was found by a detectorist on land to the west of Crewkerne in 2017.

Jewellery dealer Cornelia Perquin of Precious Flora is no stranger to antiques fairs, but this month she is branching out. She will be offering her selection of antique and vintage flower jewellery in a slightly different setting: the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant and Art Fair.

A hairwork bracelet offered at auction was inscribed to a gold mount: From the Mane of the Charger Copenhagen which carried the Duke of Wellington 18 successive hours on the 18th June 1815, The Battle of Waterloo.

Woolley & Wallis is currently selling across a number of sales a cache of items from the family of HG Murphy (1884-1939), whose Falcon Studio produced some of the finest English silver of the inter-war era.

Legend has it that, while on safari in Africa with her lover and employer Louis Cartier, Jeanne Toussaint spotted a panther and immediately exclaimed: “Onyx, diamonds, emeralds – a brooch!” The Cartier range of feline jewels was born.

This red coral necklace had formed part of The International Fisheries Exhibition staged at the Royal Horticultural Society grounds in South Kensington in 1883.