AUCTION Sales round-up
The band includes the princess’s royal cypher
Fellows, Birmingham A sapphire ring owned by Princess Margaret sold for £5,200, beating its guide price of £3,200£4,200 at the Midlands auction house.
The ring which was made in India was a gift from Lord Glenconner and his wife to the princess in
1995
The ring of marquise-cut sapphire petals around an emerald centre has the princess’s royal cypher engraved on the inside of the band, and the name ‘Dolly’ (Prince Adolphus of Teck, 1st Marquess of Cambridge) handwritten on the silk lining of its green leather case. The ring was sold with a certificate of provenance as well as a copy of correspondence between Lord Glenconner and Princess Margaret. Colin Tennant, the 3rd Baron Glenconner, was one of Margaret’s closest friends, and his wife, Lady Anne Coke, was one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting.
Bamfords, Derby A Sèvres cabinet cup and saucer expected to make £100-£150 sold for £12,000 at the Derbyshire auction house after it was spotted to have been the work of one of the French manufactory’s most famous designers. Marks to this piece, including the date letters dd, denote the year 1781 but key to its appeal was a painter’s mark of a lower case k for Nicolas Charles Dodin (1734-1803).
During his long tenure with the Vincennes factory Dodin painted a diverse array of subject matter including pastorals after Boucher and Fragonard, tavern scenes after Teniers and later revolutionary allegories and symbols.
The cup and saucer was spotted to have been the work of the well-known painter Nicolas
Dodin
The Canterbury Auction Galleries A number of 19th-century memento mori items beat their presale estimate of £140-£160 to fetch £400 at the Kent auction house’s recent sale, proving collectors’ undying interest in the genre. The haul included an agate brooch engraved In Memory of M H Middleton, with another brooch containing a lock of hair, marked William Crosby, 31st August 1828. At the same sale a 19ct gold watch by Cartier sold for £12,500 – more than five times its low estimate. The Cartier Baignoire was first produced by Louis Cartier in 1912 but developed into its trademark rounded silhouette in 1958. Many assume the it takes its name from the French word for “bathtub”, but more likely it comes from the name for VIP seats at the opera.
The Cartier Baignoire was first produced by Louis Cartier in 1912
The collection of memento mori pieces defied pre-sale expectations
Noonans of Mayfair A single-owner collection of more than 250 lots of Central and Eastern European banknotes from 23 countries fetched £250,000, more than £100,000 above its pre-sale estimate.
The notes, which date from 1794 to 2003, were collected by Joe Cook, after he spotted an album of banknotes in a second-hand bookshop in Bucharest in 1998 while working as a financial journalist in the region.
A colour trial of the Albania 1926 100 Franka Ari sold for £14,000
The highest-selling lot was for a colour trial of the Albania 1926 100 Franka Ari. Estimated to fetch £3,000-£4,000. The note, in a spectacular set of colours to the one actually issued, realised a hammer price of £14,000. It was purchased by an Albanian collector after a bidding war.
14 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
