Category Archives: Our Team News

Hocus pocus… Focus on… Amber

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To kick off this mini series of Halloween gems, amber is the chosen first. What could be more spooky than trapped insect containing deadly bacteria…

Prized for its deep rich and warm orange hue, amber is an organic gem, meaning that it is created from living or once living organism, it is fossilized tree resin dating tens of millions of years. It is composed of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. Nicknamed “the gold of the North”, it is most commonly found on Northern Europe’s beaches, washed away with the ocean tides. It can also be dug from the ground and deposits have also been found in the Dominican Republic, Myanmar (Burma) and Mexico.

There is a distinction to be made between amber and copal amber. The latter refers to amber which fossilized less than a million years ago. But who’s counting!! It is also fossilized tree resin and is formed in the same manner. One cannot differentiate between the two using a magnifying glass, but rather by using “granny’s old tricks”. Some say that rubbing copal amber on the heel of your hand will emit a smell, others suggest a drop of acetone or even gasoline to determine copal from mature amber: amber is unaffected by acetone whereas copal softens the material. Either way, probably best to avoid doing at home and damaging one’s precious jewel!

Like with all gems, it takes very specific conditions to create amber. It takes a few million years for resin to harden. Once it has hardened it lays under sediment in an oxygen-free environment. It turns to copal amber. It then takes a few more million years to become more stable with the effects of heat and pressure applied to the copal amber to become amber. Research shows that the deposits found in the Baltic and Dominican Republic came from extended immersion under seawater.

Because of its relative softness – rating at 2/2.5 on the Mohs scale (talc powder rates at 1) – it is not commonly cut with facets, but rather polished into beads or free-form pieces.

Jewellery made of amber tend to be big pieces. The reason for it being the lightness of this gem, making it a perfect candidate to wear around one’s neck without feeling weighed down.

The most prized amber pieces are typically transparent, dark reddish hue. However, amber also comes in white and treatments to enhance colour can modify its appearance totally. Heat treatment and dying are commonly used to enhance amber and one distinct mark to look for are sun spangles. Heating amber can cause fracture-like marks: sun spangles.

Amber is a treasured gem because of the secrets they can unveil. The insects, fauna and animals they have sometimes captured tell a tale.

Inclusions play a huge part in the final value of amber but often if the inclusion is perfect, then it probably is too perfect to be real.

It can be extremely difficult to trust authentic amber with inclusions, such as this piece for sale on eBay for $129,000:

And this perfectly preserved scorpion, also on for sale at eBay for £4.90! :

When in doubt and spending a large amount, always ask for a report from a reputable laboratory.

Man-made or real, amber with insect inclusions make the perfect jewellery piece for trick or treating!

Hocus pocus… Focus on… Skull Jewellery

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Skull jewellery and gemstones

Skulls. Usually not what comes to mind when talking about jewellery design and carved gems. However, skull jewels, and especially rings, have had a long tradition of being part of one’s collection.

The appeal may not be so obvious but it is one that continues to be popular throughout times.

Why a skull? It acts as a reminder. That life is not forever and days are counted. That one should live every day to the fullest, carpe diem. And what’s not to love about that message? Embracing one’s life and accepting your fate, not always fighting against the things we cannot control.

In more recent years, Theo Fennell is recognised as one of the top fashion jewellers to use this symbol of life and has used all sorts of gemstones in his creations to amplify his creations.

If rings are not your go to jewellery item this Halloween, then perhaps a pendant necklace by the same designer could be an option.

Halloween calls for creativity, so this year, why not trade in the pumpkin for a carved gem skull? Sure to get your neighbours quivering in their boots and make a bold statement.

There are a multitude of options. In keeping with the orange theme of the pumpkin, a citrine skull could be an option.

Quartz, which citrine is a variety of, has a hardness of 7/7.5 on the Mohs scale and makes it a good candidate to get sharp edges to carve the teeth and a pointy nose.

It can also come other colours such as purple amethyst:

Or even blue:

A wide variety of options is available on the market, including at specialized auctions.

Bonhams sold this lot in Los Angeles in 2017 for $1,187 incl premium. It includes an amethyst obelisk decorated with twenty carved skulls, Height 11in; a sculpture comprising three skulls with a butterfly, carved of boulder opal from Queensland, Australia, length 5 1/2 in; together with a Mexican black obsidian carving of a skull with owl perched, height 6 1/2 in.

But possibly the most “out of this world” carved skull must be a sculpture sold in 2015 at Bonhams in Los Angeles, carved out of meteorite, making it the largest Gibeon meteorite carving in the world.

Gibeon meteorites are iron-based and “originated billions of years ago from unstable planet that existed briefly between Jupiter and Mars.

When the planet broke apart, a section of its core travelled through space for four billion years.” It penetrated the Earth’s atmosphere about 1,000 years ago and landed in Namibia.

This particular 21kgs life-sized carving, nicknamed Yorick, was created from a 280kgs meteorite. It is one of the rarest forms of meteorite.

The choice is vast for Halloween decorations whether for the house or fashionwear. All one needs to do now is pick the right outfit for a night of trick or treating…

Brown and out

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‘The confusing world of antique furniture in 2022’

In the world of antique furniture, there is nothing that raises temperatures, or gives a better reason for an argument than the rather broad term of brown furniture, but what does it actually mean and is the market for such items truly as doomed as many people would want you to believe?

Firstly, lets back track about 23 years. The 1990s were coming to a close, Lovejoy had been cancelled, Ikea was becoming a love/hate word in the English vocabulary and traditional antique furniture that had been the mainstay of the collectible and usable market had started to hit hard times. The re-discovery of mid-century modern furniture had started to fit with people’s lifestyles and the necessity for a Victorian gentleman’s compac tum had waned.

At this stage, demand had simply dropped and by the 2010s one c ould buy a Victorian chest of drawers, built by a craftsman, from a fine imported mahogany for pretty much the same as a cardboard box full of Swedish chipboard that you would have to spent hours putting together yourself – it just doesn’t seem right, does it?

However ‘Brown furniture’ isn’t simply the row of beaten-up Edw ardian sideboards in a local auction house, it includes some of the most glorious items ever made as functional pieces – and to place all items of furniture into a single category, jus t because they are made from wood seems a little absurd.

The market today for fine antique furniture is perhaps not as s trong as it was in those days when anyone would pay at least a £1000 for something that start ed with “Georgian” but looking at retail markets now, there are fine and rare pieces a vailable for well in excess of what many people would give them credit for.

So what does the future hold for the ‘Brown Furniture’ market?

Let us not kid ourselves, do we really think that the modern, a lmost disposable lifestyles that people live in 2022 are going to ever need a chest of drawers w ith a brushing slide? Do we think that suddenly every house will need a drop leaf bureau an d that writing letters will suddenly become popular again?

Of course, the answer to both of these questions is no, but – the market for customers that actually do desire these items will only go up as the collector s market still strives to own the best, and only the best.

So when your clients say “we have some brown furniture, but it’ s not really worth anything anymore” it might be worth getting it looked at…

Going to the match

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Lowry’s painting, ‘Going to the Match’ from 1953 depicts a bustling throng of football fans gathered at the former home of Bolton Wanderers. It won Lowry first prize in a 1953 exhibition, which was sponsored by The Football Association.

The painting, last came up for auction in December 1999, just days away from the new millennium and the dawn of the new technology that has changed all our lives and turbo charged the Art and Auction world.

The estimate back then was £700-900,000 which was itself a world record estimate and the final price of £1.9 million was also a new record which stood for almost 10 years! ‘Going to the Match’ was bought by Graham Taylor, bidding via phone, on behalf of the Professional Footballers Association, (PFA) the footballer’s Trade Union.

From the auction it went on long term loan to the Lowry in Salford, where until April this year it was on permanent display to the public.

Last night in London, 22 years on, it was back on the auction block, again with a world record estimate of £5-8 million and after a fierce auction battle it deservedly made a new world auction record price of £7.8, far exceeding the previous record for a Lowry of £5.6 million set in 2011.

The PFA recently transferred ownership of the picture to their charitable arm, the Players Foundation so that now all the sale proceeds
will go towards helping those in need. Even better, thanks to the generosity of the Law Family charitable trust run by Andrew and Zoe Law, the Lowry Gallery in Salford were able to bid successfully at the auction and so now they will soon have their visitor’s favourite Lowry picture back again on the wall in Salford Quays so we can all enjoy it now and into the future.

Ametrine

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Ametrine is a form of quartz. It combines both the purple amethyst and the yellow citrine all into one stone, making it somewhat of a unique specimen. To add to this uniqueness, commercial ametrine is only found in Bolivia, and more precisely in the mine of Anahi.

What do we mean by commercial? Stones that are of a particular quality that can be cut and set into jewellery.

 

The mine was named after a legendary princess of the 1600s who married a Spanish conquistador and was given the mine as dowry. The mine located in a very remote area of Bolivia, was lost for centuries. Research shows that the mine was only rediscovered in the mid-50s, only accessible by plane and small boats.

Ametrine displays the same properties as amethystand citrine. Ametrine rates a 7/10 on the Mohs scale. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was created by Friedrich Mohs in 1822 and determines the scratch resistance of minerals when scratches by another mineral.

The Mohs scale is used to manufacture everyday objects: your mobile phone’s screen glass is made of a material that scratches at level 6, some at level 7. Ametrine therefore has good toughness and is suitable to be set in jewellery, such as this sapphire and ametrine torsade necklace which sold at auction for $408 (pictured below).

It can be noticed that ametrine is most commonly found in jewellery as a rectangular-cut stone. This cut displays the bi-colour property of the gem, exposing both colours at its best, with the clear demarcation between the yellow and the purple. The most prized ametrine will display fine transparency, a good contrast of colours and an equal balance between the two colours. Though it rates rather high on the Mohs scale, its colour can fade if exposed for long periods of time to too much bright light. If ametrine is worn in jewellery, its wearer should be aware of its possibility to scratch and chip if not cared for properly.

How would one care for its ametrine-set jewels? The best and safest way to clean your jewellery is with good old fashion soap and warm water and not exposing it to high heat. It is preferable not to place the gem in an ultrasonic in case the stone or others in the piece of jewellery have been dyed or fracture filled (the machine’s vibrations will remove the modifications).

Because of its extraordinary features, ametrine is often carved into fantasy-cuts.

An ametrine carving of rooster by Gerd Dreher sold at auction for $12,575. Dreher is a German animal figure carver, the fourth generation of Dr eher in this line of activity. He was born in 1943 in Idar- Oberstein, one of the most important gemstone centres in the world with the finest lapidaries and gem cutters.

This gem-set obelisk / jewellery box by Manfred Wild (pictured top right) remained unsold at $200,000- 250,000. Wild aas born in 1944 in Kirshvayler near Idar-Oberstein. He is the eighth representative of the family dynasty that has been engaged in lapidary art since 1630. Manfred Wild is sometimes called “The 21st century Fabergé”.

Ametrine is used in a wide range of carvings for its intriguing features. It is not uncommon to see jewels set with ametrine but it seems to be slightly underappreciated for what it is: an exceptional wonder of nature who combines two stones into one giving it a delightful play with colours.

I For Iolite

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Iolite is the gemstone variety of cordierite, a magnesium, iron, aluminium and cyclosilicate mineral named after the French geologist Pierre Cordier (1777 – 1861) – founder of the French Geological Society.

As with some other blue gemstones, iolite is known for its pleochroic properties giving it that extra sparkle. Pleochroism is an optical phenomenon in which a substance has different colours when observed at different angles, especially with polarized light.

Iolite occurs in several areas of Africa, including Kenya and central Tanzania. In fact, when Tanzanite was first discovered, geologists thought it was corderite.

Other iolite source countries include India, Brazil, Norway and a large deposit found in 1994 in Madagascar.

The name iolite comes from the Greek word ios, meaning “violet”. It is said that iolite slices were used by Viking navigators to locate the sun on cloudy days, used as some form of compass.

The gem rates at 7 to 7.5/10 on the Mohs hardness scale. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness was created by Friedrich Mohs in 1822 and determines the scratch resistance of minerals when scratches by another mineral.

The Mohs scale is used to manufacture everyday objects: your mobile phone’s screen glass is made of a material that scratches at level 6, some at level 7.

Even though iolite scores rather high on the Mohs scale, it has strong cleavage in one direction, giving it only a fair toughness. Cleavage, caused by weak atomic bonds, is the weakest plane in a gemstone where the gemstone can split.

For this reason, jewellers are a little reluctant to use the gem in jewellery, specially any hard-wearing jewel such as rings for example.

The gem’s most sought after colours are violetish blue to fine blue. But iolite can appear to be greyish, even transparent, or golden and even brown. Depending on where the light hits, differentcolours will show. For this reason, iolite can be confused with colour change sapphires.

Vivid violetish iolites over 5 carats are rare and cannot be treated in the same way as corundum (sapphires) can be. Unlike sapphires, iolite’s chemical composition won’t allow it to be heat treated to intensify its colour. The gem would simply melt at such high temperatures.

Iolite is more often than not faceted, bringing out its unique transparency, free of inclusions.

But it also is a popular choice for cabochons.

In some iolites, a phenomenon called cat’s eye can sometimes be observed. This effect comes out at its best when the gem is cut as a cabochon.

The cat’s eye effect is caused by long, parallel, tubular inclusions. It can also be found in other gems such as sapphire and chrysoberyl.

Though iolite is hardly ever treated, making it a very appealing affordable blue-gem alternative, due to its relative hardness and lack of consistent fine quality supply, it is not found in as many workshops as tanzanites for example. However, iolite is also cut as beads and strung to make beautiful colourful
necklaces.

A wonderful twenty-first wedding anniversary gift…

The Imperial State Crown

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If one wants a glimpse of The Imperial State Crown, it is on display in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, as it has been for the last 600 years. But on the 19th September 2022, this most unique and priceless item of jewellery laid on her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin for her final farewell.

During her reign, Queen Elizabeth II would wear it annually for the State Opening of Parliament, sharing in 2018 that “You can’t look down to read the speech, you have to take the speech up, because if you did your neck would break”. The crown weighs 1.06kgs.

Monarchs wear the Imperial State Crown when departing from the Abbey after the coronation, and for all other occasions requiring crown-wearing thereafter.

Originally made by Rundell and Bridge in 1838 for the coronation of Queen Victoria. It was commissioned for the coronation of the Queen’s father, King George VI in 1937 from Garrard & Co.

The crown is set with historical gems with nearly 3,000 stones – including 2,868 diamonds, 273 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and five rubies.

The Culinan II, or Second Star of Africa, weighs 317.4 carats, with 66 facets.

Cullinan produced 9 major stones of 1,055.89 carats in total, including the Cullinan II, plus 96 smaller brilliant and some unpolished fragments weighing 19.5 carats. The Cullinan diamond was found in 1905 in South Africa’s Premier Mine at Cullinan, named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, who opened the mine in 1902. It is believed the diamond surfaced 1.18 billion years ago. Originally thought to be some priceless crystal, the mine’s manager did not give another look when the miner found it. He persevered, and it then became the largest diamond to be found.

It was sent to London in a plain box via registered post and presented to King Edward VII. It remained unsold until 1907.

The Transvaal Colony government bought the diamond on 17 October 1907 for £150,000, the equivalent of £18 million. It was presented to the King on his 66th birthday at Sandringham House.

He accepted the gift “for myself and my successors” and ensured that “this great and unique diamond be kept and preserved among the historic jewels which form the heirlooms of the Crown”

The king chose Joseph Asscher & Co. of Amsterdam to cleave and polish the rough stone into brilliant gems of various cuts and sizes.

Cutters here in Amsterdam plan how the stone should be cut. It took 8 ½ months to cleave and cut.

The images above show Joseph Asscher cleaving the Cullinan.

On the first blow, Asscher’s hammer blew off. It was on the second attempt that the diamond shattered into 9 pieces.

Cullinan I is set in the sceptre, which also laid on the Queen’s coffin.

The Black Prince’s ruby, in its prominent place on the crown, is in fact a spinel. It was only in 1783 that spinels were differentiated from rubies. They share many chemical properties, such as aluminium, oxygen, and chromium but spinels also have magnesium.

This “ruby” is said to have been in English royal hands since the 1360s.

It was probably discovered in the Himalayan mountains of central Asia, in the Badakhshan (Balascia) region that was famed for its spinels. It drilled at some point to be worn as a pendant. The hole was later filled with a smaller cabochon ruby edged in gold.

It was supposedly worn by King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and saved him from an axe blow to the head, struck by the Duke of Alençon. Henry survived, as did the ruby, and the English were victorious.

The Stuart Sapphire is set at the back of the crown and weighs approximately 104 carats.

In Youngblood and Davenport “The Crown Jewels of England”, they describe the stone as follows: “oval in shape, about one and a half inches in length, by one inch in breadth, and is set in a gold brooch. It has one or two blemishes, but is of good colour, and was evidently deemed of high value by the Stuarts. At one end has been drilled a hole, probably to introduce some attachment by which the stone could be worn as a pendant.”

Queen Victoria, was the first monarch to have the sapphire set in her state crown. During Victoria’s reign, the sapphire was set at the front of the crown, just below the Black Prince’s Ruby.

After the discovery of the Cullinan diamond, the sapphire was relocated to the back. There is still some mystery as to whether the Stuart sapphire in The Imperial State Crown has been the same gem since it was first used in royal jewels in 1660 but it certainly has been in the collection for over two centuries.

These priceless gems, the Cullinan II, the Black Prince’s Ruby and the Stuart Sapphire are a reminder of majesty, sovereignty and tradition embodied in the institution. Following tradition, King Charles III will wear the St Edward’s Crown for his coronation, but will put on the Imperial State Crown to leave Westminster Abbey at the end of the ceremony.

God Save the Queen, Long Live the King.

The Queen’s Portraits

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Throughout history the Crown has used portraiture to define and promote its official image – the image which each successive monarch chooses to portray itself to the Nation. These images, whether they show the monarch as a great head of State, or as a triumphant military leader or even as the embodiment of middle-class values, have eventually come to define the visual culture of each passing generation.

With 70 years on the Throne, Queen Elizabeth II is the United Kingdom’s longest-reigning monarch, surpassing even her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years. Throughout her long reign Queen Elizabeth II has overseen the greatest political and social changes this county has ever seen. She was born into a country which still sat at the centre of a global empire, and during her reign she oversaw the evolution of the Commonwealth of Nations.

The United Kingdom has emerged from a post Edwardian society to a vibrant, modern, multi-culture one. All this in one lifetime.

From Cecil Beaton to Pietro Annigoni, from Andy Warhol to Lucian Freud, and more recently Jamie Reid to Chris Levine – Britain’s longest reigning monarch has been painted by some of the greatest artists of her time, with each image recording the ever-evolving relationship between the Queen and her people. But what is unique about the Queen’s portraits in the history of royal portraiture, is that her face has been appropriated to become an icon of popular culture. She is both a Queen, a Pop icon and a defining symbol of punk subversiveness!

Over her long life and reign, Queen Elizabeth II became the most photographed and depicted person in Human history, and her image has become embedded in the world’s cultural consciousness. Never in the history of Human history has one person been portrayed so.

Cecil Beaton

The fashion designer, Cecil Beaton, was unusually chosen to take the official coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth on June 2, 1954. The image he created came to define the first decade of the Queen’s reign and symbolised the new Elizabethan age she heralded in. At its heart, the image is fundamentally rooted in the tradition of Royal portraiture, with the Queen shown in all the majesty of her Coronation robes – with the Imperial State Crown on her head and the orb and sceptre in her hands. Beaton manages to capture the Queen as both intensely royal but also yet somewhat vulnerable due to her youth.

Interestingly, whilst this is an intensely traditional image, the medium of photography with which it was created, together with Beaton’s visual trickery also makes it a surprisingly modern one. Although the image appears at first glance to be set in Westminster Abbey, the photographer actually employed a theatrical backdrop for the photo, which was taken in a drawing room at Buckingham Palace.

Pietro Annigoni

In 1954, two years after her coronation, the Italian artist Pietro Annigoni painted the first of his two famous portraits of the Queen. Commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers in London, the painting is universally considered the most beautiful ever painted of her and is the queen’s known favourite. The artist shows the beautiful young queen in the magnificent robes of the ancient Order of the Garter and set within a beautiful Italianate landscape worthy of any Renaissance master. The resulting image is a supremely elegant and glamorous one, which has appeared on stamps and currency in British dependencies across the world.

In 1969, at the request of the Queen, the National Portrait Gallery in London, commissioned Annigoni to paint her portrait again. This time, however, the artists decided not to paint her as a glamorous young monarch, but rather as a much more remote Regal figure, silhouette starkly against an almost abstracted background. As the artist said himself, “I did not want to paint her as a film star, I saw her as a monarch, alone in the problems of her responsibility,” said the artist of the striking difference.

Jamie Reid

The 1970s saw Punk Rock explode onto the British scene. Anti-establishment and anarchic, Punk challenged everything the previous generation held dear, and its influence was truly global. How ironic then, that one of Punk’s greatest images is Jamie Reid’s famous Sex Pistol’s album cover showing the Queen superimposed across the Union Jack! The figure head of the Establishment being used to subvert itself. To this day, it is one of the most influential images of the Queen of all time.

Andy Warhol

In 1985, the king of Pop Art Andy Warhol, produced his Reigning Queen’s  portfolio of prints – a set of 16 portraits of the world’s four reigning Queens – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, Queen Ntombi Twala of Swaziland and of course, our Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Warhol chose to depict these female monarchs, as powerful matriarchs – queens who ruled in their own right and were not queens through marriage. These portraits represent independent female authority, a different view on femininity in comparison to Warhol’s portraits of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Billy Boy.

Lucien Freud

In 2001 one of Britain’s greatest living painters, Lucien Freud, painted his tiny but highly controversial portraits of the Queen. Originally meant to depict the Queen informally without a crown or tiara, Freud had to subsequently expand the canvas by 3.5cm when he decided to include the 1820 Diamond Diadem! Without doubt the most controversial of all the Queen’s portraits, this tiny work has divided audiences since it was first exhibited. Whilst certainly not one of her Majesty’s most flattering portraits, the way that Freud has disregarded the entire tradition of Royal portraits is certainly unique.

Alison Jackson

Whatever next – the Queen taking selfies?! Well not quite! This faux royal family selfie is the work of Alison Jackson, a British photographer who has made her reputation creating convincing personal photos of intimate moments experienced by British celebrities using look alike actors. Alison Jackson’s genius lies in her ability to cast convincing doppelganger actors in the role of her famous sitters in entirely convincing, yet fake situations. One can only guess that Her Majesty must get a kick out of such fun…..the Queen as a social media savvy influencer monarch!

Chris Levine

In 2004, British artist Chris Levine created what can only be described as a modern classic when he produced his, Lightness of Being portrait of the Queen. The work which he produced in various formats, shows the Queen beautifully dressed in white fur and pearls, wearing the 1820 Diamond Diadem. However, what is disarming about the image is that the Queen is depicted with her eyes closed in contemplation. The artist explained how the image came about, “I wanted the Queen to feel peaceful, so I asked her to rest  between shots; this was a moment of stillness that just happened.” The resulting image is indeed peaceful and calm, yet it is also full of gravity and  power – a monarch who has reigned over us for 70 years.

The Queen’s Handbags

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“Following the devastating news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, we are rerunning some articles printed earlier this year. As a fashion icon, and loyal servant to our country for over 70 years, we pay tribute”

Walking down Regent Street on a sunny afternoon during the Platinum Jubilee week, one cannot forget how important 2022 is for Her Majesty the Queen. 70 years doing any job is virtually unheard of so a celebration to mark
the occasion is certainly befitting.

Whilst we look forward to not only an extra bank holiday, many celebrations around the United Kingdom and the world, Queen Elizabeth will no doubt take it all in her stride in a simple and understated manner, much
like her handbags.

The Queen has always been known for supporting and almost endorsing Launer Handbags. The Queen Mother had purchased one in the 1940s after Sam Launer had relocated to the United Kingdom after Nazi persecution
in Czechoslovakia during The Second World War, and it is rumoured that the Queen still owns these pieces that date to before she came to the throne. The brand was awarded the Royal Warrant in 1968.

The royal collection of Launer handbags now comprises over 200 individual pieces though, with the favourites reportedly being the Traviata, the Diva and of course, the Royale. It is said that she orders around five pieces per year with custom elements to each, and no doubt Launer will have made sure to make something special for this year’s celebrations.

The values of these bags are almost insignificant compared to many others that we see on a day-to-day basis, with values usually being less than £3000, but they are all hand made in Britain and command a strong following with Lady Margaret Thatcher having been a fan of the brand.

It is hard to imagine, but a considerable amount of time and effort has been placed in providing the Queen with the perfect bag. It must have long handles so it doesn’t get in the way when she is meeting people, it must also
be fairly lightweight as she doesn’t keep much in there during the day – apparently only a pen, spectacles case, lipstick, hand cream and mints make it into the royal handbag.

If you ever wondered why the Queen always had her handbag, even when carrying out Royal duties at home, this was because it served an additional purpose. If she placed her bag on a table and looked around the room,
this gave her staff a five minute warning that she was ready to leave and to prepare!

As we pay tribute to Her Majesty for the 70 years of service, we also appreciate Lauren’s 70 years of being a true British Icon.

Reflections on Her Majesty

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At this time of national mourning, I think it is important to reflect on the many happy moments in the life of Her Majesty. My younger sister, Amanda, has a sweet photograph of her late and much-lamented husband, taking The Queen to inspect the Guard at Balmoral. They are laughing as they chat.

The year is 1982 and Major (as he was then) Ian Chant-Sempill, my brother-in-law, was on his second stint at Balmoral, one of the cushiest three month postings in the army! The Guard is always drawn from Highland Regiments, in Ian’s case, The Gordon Highlanders. He became their last Colonel before they amalgamated with the Queen’s own Highlanders to form The Highlanders. The officers of the Guard were invited stalking, shooting on the estate and to fish the River Dee. Ian was a very good fisherman and caught 27 salmon during his tour of duty, which I believe is a record.

One night at dinner at Balmoral, poached salmon was on the menu. The Queen leant across the table and said: “ I think this is one of yours, Ian”. Amanda sat next to Prince Andrew, who had just returned from the Falklands, and Koo Stark was there, too. Charles and Diana were newly-weds and the days seemed carefree.

Note: My dear brother-in-law, Ian, had very good Artworld credentials. He was the Great Grandson of Sir John Lavery, R.S.A., R.A., R.H.A. Christie’s currently holds the world record for a Lavery at auction, with “The Croquet Party”, sold on March 22nd this year, for £2.922m (inc. premium).

Footnote: Amanda and Ian also dined on several occasions with HM The Queen Mother at Birkhall, her residence on the Balmoral estate.

On one famous occasion they were asked to arrive early for drinks and sat down promptly at 8pm for dinner in the dining room, which contained no fewer than nine grandmother clocks! At 8.19pm, having consumed three courses, the Queen Mother said “shall we have coffee in the sitting room?” She didn’t want to miss the start of “Dad’s Army”! She turned to Amanda and said “I do so love Arthur Lowe”.

When the programme was over, they all played racing demon on the floor.