Features

A Prussian Garde du Corps helmet that might well have once graced parade grounds and palaces took pride of place in an East Yorkshire saleroom.

This distinctive domed form of this carefully forged helmet gives a big clue to its origin.

A George III cast bronze two-pounder sold on June 3 came from a group of 12 cast for a commission by second Viscount William Courtenay, most probably for his private yacht Dolphin in 1775. The cannon was later removed to Powderham Castle, Devon.

In 1962, Lord John Hope, the Minister of Works in the Macmillan government commissioned David Mellor (1930-2009) to ‘supply silver you have designed to every British embassy in the world’.

Pictured below are three fine silver and enamel cigarette cases dating from the turn of the 20th century sold at auction in recent weeks.

The popular dealer amassed an impressive array of items assayed in the city

From the late 18th century, Birmingham was the centre for the making of ‘toys’ – small decorative objects including boxes, nutmeg graters, buckles, caddy spoons, vinaigrettes and rattles, fashioned from silver.

The many models of anthropomorphic primates that proliferated British decorative arts in the 1860s typically reference Charles Darwin’s provocative and often lampooned 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection', first published in 1859.

This 2ft 6in (75cm) high five-light candelabrum hallmarked for Sheffield 1844 and the firm Creswick & Co (Thomas, James and Nathaniel Creswick) is both an impressive example of early Victorian table silver and a memento of the heroic era of polar exploration.

Spoons are among the very few pieces of English silver surviving from the period of Wars of the Roses.

This impressive array of costume jewellery sold in Paris showcased the work of half a century and seven creative directors of the Dior brand.

Cartier’s aquamarine jewellery appears to have been predominantly produced from the London workshop starting in 1932.

While Whitby jet was particularly fashionable during the reign of Victoria, it had been a popular material for jewellery from the Romano British period onwards.

The sale of Fine Jewellery & Ladies Watches at Adam’s (25% buyer’s premium) in Dublin on May 13 included an impressive retro sapphire and diamond ‘tank’ ring, c.1940, that came for sale from the ‘private collection of a Continental lady’.

In the 1920s-30s, the Scottish-born goldsmith Sybil Dunlop (1889- 1968) presided over a workshop in London’s Kensington Church Street dressed in a kaftan and Russian fur boots.

Bonhams’ London Jewels sale on June 5 features a spectacular Cartier turquoise and diamond tiara that comes by descent from Nancy, Viscountess Astor (1879-1964).

This large diamond, sapphire and emerald peacock feather brooch was the highlight of a recent Fine Jewellery sale held at Fellows (25% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham.

Among the highlights of a recent jewellery sale held by Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) in Oxford was this mid-to late-19th century amethyst parure.

A previously unrecorded Elizabethan gold signet ring, a gift from the influential Tudor financier and merchant, Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79), comes for sale at Noonans on June 17.