Serendipity had it that two important, but scantily catalogued, lots of European glass emerged for sale in the south of England in early January.

Extracted from Learn Antiques Gazette | Roland Arkell

A pair of tumblers decorated by the celebrated Beilby workshop of Newcastle upon Tyne c.1765 sold for an unexpected £5400 (plus 19% premium) in Kent on January 5.

Estimated at just £50-80 by Bentleys in Cranbrook, the 3in (8cm) high tumblers were painted with various Masonic emblems and also inscribed PT 1768.

They had come for sale over the counter and sold online to a buyer from the north east via thesaleroom.com.

Other glasses from this set are well known.

Famously, four of them, bought for £1 at a Brighton boot fair, were sold by Christie’s South Kensington in 2005 for £18,000. The quartet was split and single tumblers have since sold at both Bonhams and Sotheby’s.

Van Hoecke bottles

Two days later, at Hannam’s in Selborne, Hampshire, a near pair of late 17th century silver-mounted bottles brought a successful bid of £30,000 (plus 23% premium) from a UK dealer.

The ‘shaft and globe’ type aquamarine glass bottles had been acquired by a collector in the US some 30 years ago.

They were catalogued as 18th century but were subsequently understood to carry hallmarks for The Hague goldsmith Adriaen van Hoecke, c.1665.

A bottle (catalogued as French) with near-identical fruiting vine and cherub mounts by van Hoecke dated 1664 is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.