Features

The sale at Roseberys London on May 18 includes this gold and silver-inlaid bronze tapir-form zun dated to the Yuan or early Ming period.

Among the highlights of the Asian Art auction at Koller on June 2 is this ink and colour scroll painting 'Sunrise at Mount Tai' by Li Keran (1907-89).

Chiswick Auctions conducts two sales on June 1-2: the usual Asian Art sale, plus a themed sale called Chinese Art: 100 Stories.

Sotheby’s sale of Chinese art on May 12 includes this Qianlong mark and period celadon ground famille rose decorated bottle vase.

This 19th century thangka depicts the Buddhist goddess Tara seated in lalitasana on a lotus growing from a lake a pond, a padma in each hand.

In the latest of our occasional series of collector interviews, ATG talks to a young collector who not only buys clocks and watches but is also a horological apprentice.

For the famous English socialite Anne Parsons, Countess of Rosse (1902-92), appearances certainly mattered – and she was known to use eye-catching jewels to accentuate her own beauty.

How a firm of importers brought Jugendstil jewellery to Britain – with the help of a little German efficiency

The Islamic and Indian Art sale at Bonhams (27.5/25% buyer’s premium) in London on March 30 included this diamond and emerald set forehead pendant (chand-tikka) from the collection of Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817-63).

A spectacular parure of sapphires and diamonds, from the collection of Napoleon’s adoptive daughter, Stephanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (1789-1860), is for sale at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction in Geneva on May 12.

Kingham & Orme’s (23% buyer’s premium) first-ever specialist auction of Jewellery & Watches took place on February 19 with just over 200 lots.

The popularity of the tiara, that reached its peak in the decades before the onset of the First World War when diamonds from South Africa were in plentiful supply, has fluctuated across the 20th century in line with prosperity and fashion.

A recent Fine Jewellery sale at Fellows (23% buyer’s premium) in Birmingham included an unusual Victorian necklace.

Dawsons’ (23% buyer’s premium) dedicated Jewellery, Watches & Silver auction in Maidenhead on March 11 included two unusual signed pieces by flavour-of-the-month Andrew Grima (1921-2007).

Sotheby’s sold the collection of Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma at the end of last month.

Better late than never, Woolley & Wallis will get to hold its January jewellery sale this month – on April 29.

A note penned in December 1963 by Mary Elizabeth Smith from The Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Liverpool, to a Miss V Stoker of 54 Pirton Road, Hitchin, sold for £1300 to a UK online bidder at Wolverhampton saleroom Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium) on March 19.

Classic Hammer Horror film posters are always popular at auction. This example below was probably the first UK quad release of The Hound of The Baskervilles (1959) starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

While the Grand Hotel, Birmingham, may not have the same ring as Hotel California, in the Sixties it was the place to check in. And even leave afterwards.

The late Michael Armstrong was such a film fanatic that when the local cinema closed in his home town in 1993 he opened his own mini replica in his garage, complete with recycled fixtures and fittings.