The J Paul Getty Museum has purchased a Hellenistic gold box-bezel ring, describing it as “one of the finest and best-preserved surviving examples of this ancient jewellery type”. The c.3rd-2nd ...

Silver spoons for the dining table have been around since antiquity - a much longer history than the table fork, which did not come into general use until the 18 th century. By this time spoons had ...

Up to the mid-1670s, English glasses, like their Continental counterparts, were made of soda glass producing thinly constructed, lightweight vessels of fluid design. The patenting by George ...

After 1840, F. & R. Pratt of Fenton in Staffordshire, became the leading (but not the only) manufacturer of multicoloured transfer printed pot lids and a huge range of related wares. Long admired for ...

When they first came into use in the 1830s, friction matches were hazardous and could combust without warning, so vesta cases were something of a necessity. But as their production became more ...

While the origins of the game date back over a millennium (early precursors have been traced to the 6th century AD), its popularity in Europe really started to grow in the Medieval period as the game ...

The form emerged in the early 18 th century, though the origin of the name is obscure. Chairs of this type were manufactured in large numbers in the Thames Valley in Buckinghamshire, and Windsor may ...

Within the broader context of 18th century drinking glasses there are certain areas which form the basis of specialist collecting fields. One of these is Beilby glassware, a class mostly of drinking ...

As followers of Old Master prints are well aware, Rembrandt (1606-69) etchings appear at auction with great regularity with the most sought after subjects and earliest states commanding impressive ...

Capping a strong year for the Indian art market, Christie’s has set a new record for any classical Indian or Islamic painting at auction.

A recently rediscovered early work by Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) has sold for €400,000 (£349,000) at Dorotheum. The modest bust-length portrait of the young Don José Álvarez de Toledo Osorio y ...

They did this to avoid the perils of travel and (after 1784) to escape paying duty in a region where a heathy distain for the Hanoverians persisted well into the 19 th century. Currently some 30 ...