Features

A recent Welsh Sale, conducted by Rogers Jones (24/15% buyer’s premium) in Cardiff included a consignment of Swansea and Nantgarw that came by descent from the preeminent Welsh porcelain collector Sir Leslie Joseph.

Hot on the heels of Christie’s offering a collection of more than 80 18th century Battersea and Bilston enamels formed by interwar connoisseur Nellie Ionides (part of the May 27 auction of items from the estate of Lord and Lady Swaythling), Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) featured a smaller selection of similar wares across two sales in the summer.

Anti-slavery objects are enjoying a particular strong moment in the market as museums at home and in the US seek to fill holes in collections vulnerable to the label ‘pale, male and stale’.

The Woolley & Wallis sale in Salisbury on September 21 titled Arts of Africa, Oceania and he Americas includes a small section of antiquities.

Guy Rothwell runs Antiquities Online.

Time for some 21st century Egyptomania: this year marks 200 years since Jean-François Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs and a century since Howard Carter uncovered Tutankhamun’s tomb.

On November 9-10 Sworders will conduct an auction of objects from the collection of pioneering dealer Jan Ellen Finch (1952-2021) of Finch & Co.

Jerome Eisenberg (1930-2022), who died aged 92 on July 6, was a leading member of the antiquities trade.

Different way of operating involves exhibitions, some non-commercial, in a variety of premises.

TimeLine Auctions’ Antiquities sale includes a dozen good examples of Roman glass including this 3rd-5th century unguentarium with zigzag trail decoration.

This glass tumbler, pictured below, engraved with a crowned 'N' over a band of diamond cutting, contained in a tooled leather cylindrical travelling case, is of a type that accompanied Napoleon on campaign.

The French silver-gilt table knife and fork shown here, c.1810, is from a service made for Napoleon Bonaparte.

This example of the well-known Nelson memorial vinaigrette made by Matthew Linwood of Birmingham in 1805 sold for £2800 at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

Only two examples of this 11in (28cm) Sèvres biscuit porcelain bust of Napoleon’s son, Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph Bonaparte (1811-32), are known.

Rediscovered sculpted portrait heads a special report covering recent lots linked to the man who became emperor, dedicated to both his triumphs and defeats

Sealed wine bottles possess a powerful sense of time and place. For some collectors it is the regional connections that appeal most.

Sealed examples with coats of arms, names, dates and places reveal a social history and give an ideal opportunity for genealogical research

This sealed and dated onion in olive green glass, below, comes with a handwritten scrap of paper inscribed 'George found [this bottle] when he dived into the Thames at Windsor'. The seal reads 'S Slater 1710'.

For reasons of both supply and economics not every collector of English 18th century drinking glasses gets to own a piece from the great Beilby enamelling workshop that operated at Amen Corner in Newcastle in the 1760s-70s.

Of all antique sealed bottles, those made for the All Souls College Common Room are probably the most prevalent.