London

A fleeting moment caught by the artist but not intended for sale encapsulates the appeal of watercolours

Philippe Auguste Courvoisier (1803-73), a member of the famed Courvoisier family of Swiss watchmakers, specialised in the production of watches with portraits of 19th century royalty, such as Queen Victoria, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte or, in the case of watches sold in London and Stuttgart, the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmecid I.

Jean Rousseau (1606-84) came from a renowned watchmaking family that settled in Geneva, the cradle for prosecuted French Protestants in the 1630s.

The Rolex reference 6150, often dubbed the ‘Pre-Explorer’, was introduced in 1953 and famously tested by various Everest mountaineering expeditions over the coming years, including the first official summit by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953.

‘Settle bindings’ are the name given to a small number of surviving books published between c.1700-23 by Elkanah Settle (1648-1724).

Nine years after taking a premium-inclusive £1375 as part of the The Robert White Collection sale at Bonhams, this Pastilles Valda shop display sales automaton came back to the same auction house in London.

A round up selling exhibitions and dealer news from the UK and Europe

This small silver ‘V for Victory’ pendant made by the London firm of John Pinches Medallists for Cartier London is engraved Winston Churchill 1951-1955.

One of the eight York Rose brooches given by Prince Albert (later George VI) to the bridesmaids who attended his marriage to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother) in 1923, will be offered at Noonans in Mayfair on November 25.

Proving once again that fine tiaras associated with royalty and or aristocracy carry a financial premium, Lyon & Turnbull (26% buyer’s premium) sold the Airlie tiara on October 22.

The renewed fashion for ancient bronzes during the Qing period reflected a confluence of scholarly interest, artistic expression and political strategy.

Younger members of well-known dealer family firms set the pace at the latest LAPADA Berkeley Square Fair

A musket ball-riddled handkerchief of a Royal Navy captain cut down at the Battle of Trafalgar stood out at a London sale, but it was a letter to his eight-year-old daughter also retrieved from his pocket that added a particularly poignant touch.

David Ker, who has died aged 74, was an important and pioneering art dealer and larger-than-life figure, described as one of the most vivid upper-class characters of the last half century.

This late 19th century French gilt bronze and griotte rouge marble tripod table-stand in the Japonisme style sold for £15,000 (estimate £4000-6000) at Hansons (26.5% buyer’s premium) in Richmond, south-west London.