The object of the day: Piguet and Meylan Pocket Watch

We don’t often talk about pocket watches on Longitude because wristwatches are “of our time”. However, we do plan to bring to your attention pieces that are noteworthy, especially because they offer good value in the present market. For example, a watch with  with elaborate decorative elements or those with complications such as a minute repeater, tourbillon and perpetual calendar will cost a fraction of the same combination in a watch.

On November 12, 2012 at Christie’s Important Watches auction is a wondrous collection of  pocket watches made in Switzerland for the Chinese market. A couple spent several decades putting together this collection of enamel pocket watches from the 19th century made for the Chinese market. Specially curated for their unique beauty, they not only display intricate scenes and designs but also important movements.

Italian Renaissance Frames

The study of picture frames in general, and of Renaissance frames in particular, is a discipline in its infancy. Historic frames have always been the poor cousins of important collections of paintings and drawings. Throughout most of the modern (that is, post-medieval) era, original frames were discarded whenever a painting changed ownership, and a new frame more suitable to the work of art's new surroundings was provided. Only in the late nineteenth century did museums and private collectors develop an interest in historical authenticity that extended to frames as well as to the objects they contained, by which time frames more than one or two hundred years old had grown exceedingly rare.

Structure and Design

The development of frame design is inextricably tied to that of architecture. Whether intended for use on paintings, reliefs, or mirrors, frames were invariably designed as parts of an architectural interior and were frequently meant to harmonize with door and window surrounds. Their color, shape, and ornament were generally determined as much by their settings as by what they contained. Not only did frame design evolve with architectural taste, but frames were also often changed as interior decor was updated in order to conform to the demands of an altered context. No matter whether an eighteenth-century "Salvator Rosa" frame is appropriate to a cinquecento Crucifixion, or whether a Velázquez portrait is flattered by an English Rococo frame: pictures have always been required to live unobtrusively among furnishings of a period not their own, and frames have always been the vehicle enabling them to do so.

Collecting tips for antique cutlery collectors

As well as checking for worn tines on forks, check the bowls of spoons for sign of wear. A worn bowl will have an angled, almost cut-off appearance. The rounded-bowl soup spoon didn’t come into being until c 1900, so what we call a tablespoon actually started life as a soup spoon. 

Set of 5 pieces of odd silver plated cutlery including 2 Christofle spoons

Antique silver candlesticks

We take the convenience of electric light so much for granted that it is easy to forget how dependent our ancestors were on candlelight. The earliest surviving silver candlesticks werer made solely for ecclesiastical use, as it was only the church who could afford such luxuries. Early candles were both smoky and smelly, made from beewax or tallow, with those made in France considered far superior to the English variety. 

Victorian Silver Candlesticks

A pretty pair of antique sterling silver candle holders with stepped square bases and Corinthian tops. The columns are decorated with trailing harebells. Height 16 cms. Base 8 x 8 cms. London 1892. Maker Martin, Hall & Co.

Price £765

Royal Doulton Bunnykins figures by Christopher Proudlove

Ever eager to keep these columns current, I felt compelled to find something to do with Easter. Inspiration came following a local auction sale in which this trio of pottery Bunnykins figures were offered. In the event, they were knocked down for a staggering total of £2,810. If nothing else, the sale proved there is no upper limit to the prices some hard-bitten collectors are prepared to pay for Royal Doulton rarities.

The bunny rabbit, whose propensity for breeding is legendary, has long served as a fertility symbol for the Spring. Bunnykins figures came from the fertile imagination of a young woman whose father, Cuthbert Bailey, happened to be the managing director of Royal Doulton. As a child, Barbara Vernon Bailey had filled sketchbooks with drawings of the countryside, and of the animals kept by her four brothers and two sisters including pigs, cows, horses and ferrets, as well as the more cuddly dogs, cats and guinea-pigs. But it was the wild rabbits, brought to life by her father’s exciting and sometimes frightening bedtime stories, that really delighted her. When, in 1934, Cuthbert Bailey hit on a new line of children’s nurseryware, he turned to Barbara for illustrations rather than a professional artist.