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june 11am 9pm general admission 25 june 26 june 27 june 28 june 29 june 30 june 11am 8pm 11am 8pm 11am 7pm 11am 7pm 11am 8pm 11am 8pm download the floorplan magazine beyond rarity joanna wu on investment grade gemstones the art of collecting and the soul of a stone june 20 2026 joanna wu is a gia certified gemologist with over 20 years of experience in the international coloured gemstone industry her expertise focuses on investment grade gemstones including burmese rubies colombian emeralds and kashmir sapphires supported by extensive global sourcing and field research across some of the world s most historic mining regions including myanmar and sri lanka alongside her gemstone expertise joanna has spent the past five years specialising in museum quality antique jewellery and advisory with a particular focus on historically significant european pieces her personal collection includes works by castellani fabergé cartier and tiffany co bridging gemological expertise historical scholarship and contemporary aesthetics joanna brings a rare perspective shaped by both academic research and decades of market experience 1 your work sits at the intersection of gemology history and collecting how do you assess a piece s value beyond its intrinsic material worth intrinsic material value is the starting point of a piece and the foundation of all assessment beyond material value and gem rarity i evaluate a work by analysing its craftsmanship such as goldsmithing techniques the social context behind its stylistic expression and whether it carries a verified provenance narrative i examine the precision of its metalwork decode the social conditions reflected in its aesthetic and trace the integrity of its chain of provenance every exceptional piece is a window into the artistic and craft movements of its era embodying the aesthetic sensibility and artisanal spirit of its time gemstones and precious metals are merely the physical vessel it is the weight of history and the mastery of craft that provide the true soul of a piece 2 investment grade gemstones are attracting increasing attention where is the distinction between a truly exceptional stone and one that is merely commercially popular the distinction comes down to three factors scarcity commercial stones are available at any time investment grade stones are singular the deposits are exhausted and no amount of money can bring them back untreated status commercial stones are commonly enhanced through human intervention heat treatment oiling investment grade stones demand no treatment untreated status is the guarantee of value authority commercial stones need only look beautiful investment grade stones require not just high quality and scarcity but top tier laboratory certification such as ssef or gübelin conferring the highest grades such as pigeon s blood for rubies royal blue for sapphires 3 in your view how do antique jewellery and unmounted stones compare as long term collecting or investment vehicles unmounted stones are a standardised asset you are acquiring a scarce resource the advantages are valuation transparency and strong liquidity they are the cornerstone of an investment portfolio antique jewellery is an aesthetic artwork you are acquiring history craftsmanship and legacy the advantages are irreproducibility and vast potential for artistic premium it suits collectors with a deep fluency in history and culture 4 your collection spans from castellani to fabergé what draws you particularly to historically significant european works what draws me is what i would call the thickness of time unparalleled craft the granulation and filigree of castellani or the guilloché enamel and hardstone setting of fabergé represent skills now almost entirely lost they mark a summit in the history of human artistry castellani revived the granulation and filigree of classical antiquity as an archaeological revival response to industrialisation fabergé brought guilloché enamel and hardstone setting to unrivalled refinement underpinned by the ultimate aesthetic ambition of imperial russia narrative depth every piece once accompanied a soul of its era carrying with it the sensibility of its aristocratic moment to wear one is not merely to adorn it is to enter into dialogue with an artist from a century past absolute singularity contemporary jewellery can be produced on demand but each of these pieces bears the indelible imprint of its age and exists as a singular surviving object one the industrial era can never recreate to collect antique jewellery is to collect not merely jewellery but the civilisational spirit of europe at its height sealed within gold silver and stone each piece is a miniature monument to an age that cannot be brought back 5 in today s increasingly pluralistic aesthetic landscape how do you balance historical integrity with contemporary taste when advising collectors the core of that balance is draw from history judge by beauty respect the historical core never compromise the structure or essential character of a piece to accommodate contemporary decorative preferences historical integrity is the soul of its asset value elevate contemporary resonance through considered styling and modern presentation reveal the resonance that antiques carry for a contemporary audience allowing objects of another age to speak with fresh aesthetic force 6 are we witnessing a shift in how younger collectors approach gemstones and antique jewellery clearly so the core of the shift is a move from displaying wealth to narrating identity the younger generation places far greater emphasis on sustainability and transparency they demand transparency about a gem s mine of origin the restoration history of antiques and the ethics behind a brand they are not simply purchasing an object they are acquiring a history worth inheriting one that aligns with their ethical convictions for young collectors gemstones and antiques are no longer simply instruments of wealth preservation they have become a means of expressing personal taste and projecting a distinctive inner world 7 having worked in frontline mining regions and deeply within the trading market where do you see the greatest opportunities in gem collecting today the core opportunity in my view lies in identifying undervalued origin premiums backed by top tier laboratory certification against the backdrop of depleting deposits and diverging asset classes as well known traditional mining regions are exhausted the market is moving away from name driven buying toward a genuine reassessment of origin as a value in itself the current opportunity sits in stones of the highest quality whose prices remain undervalued relative to their quality simply because their origins have not yet been commercially amplified collectible fancy coloured sapphires particularly padparadscha and star sapphires with direct mine source provenance fall into this category the market s willingness to pay an origin premium has only just begun to emerge a second opportunity i would highlight is emeralds though the secondary market appears stable that stability conceals the reality of increasingly depleted high quality sources the circulation of top grade untreated or minimally treated stones no oil to minor oil per laboratory grading is declining and their resilience and long term value trajectory are well understood among serious collectors this quiet solidity overlooked by the mass market represents precisely the most strategically astute moment to enter british surrealism and beyond treasures from southampton city art gallery june 19 2026 by sacha peers an independent writer and arts photographer surrealism burst onto the british art scene on 11th june 1936 when the international surrealist exhibition opened at london s new burlington galleries led by the poet david gascoyne and artist roland penrose the show introduced over 390 works of surrealist painting and sculpture to an unsuspecting london public even before opening the exhibition was surrounded by controversy and myth with a consignment seized by customs officials on the grounds of indecency however it was the opening itself that became legendary welsh poet dylan thomas reportedly wandered among guests offering cups of boiled string asking do you like it weak or strong while salvador dalí collaborated with sheila legge on a surrealist happening in trafalgar square legge appearing as the phantom of sex appeal dressed in white with her face obscured by paper flowers and ladybirds roland penrose good shooting oil on canvas 1939 dalí s own lecture was no less theatrical he appeared dressed head to toe in a deep sea diving suit complete with diving bell helmet that rendered his speech almost inaudible holding two dogs on leads in one hand and a billiard cue in the other as dalí proceeded to give the lecture it became apparent that he was slowly suffocating inside the diving bell forcing an intervention by gascoyne to prise the helmet off with the billiard cue the general confusion was further compounded by his insistence on projecting slides upside down despite or perhaps because of such spectacle the exhibition drew more than 23 000 visitors in three weeks and stopped the british arts establishment in its tracks raising a reappraisal of what art could be yet behind the theatrics lay serious intent as organiser herbert read wrote do not judge this movement kindly it is not just another amusing stunt it is defiant the desperate act of men too profoundly convinced of the rottenness of our civilisation to want to save a shred of its respectability artists he argued had until then only interpreted the world the point however is to transform it and indeed surrealism left indelible marks on british culture its influence can be traced in the absurdist humour of monty python s flying circus and beyond where logic is gleefully upended and the everyday made strange ninety years on almost to the day treasure house fair will celebrate that seminal show with a landmark exhibition of surrealist works drawn from the distinguished permanent collection of southampton city art gallery paintings by roland penrose a driving force behind the 1936 show are joined by those of paul nash whose deep attachment to the english landscape gave his surrealism a distinctly british character alongside them are three trailblazing women artists whose contributions to the movement are only now receiving the recognition they deserve eileen agar ithell colquhoun and edith rimmington agar being the only british woman included in the original 1936 exhibition the display is completed by the belgian born paul delvaux one of the most celebrated figures associated with the movement as treasure house returns to the grounds of the royal hospital chelsea for its fourth edition we hope to recall the spirit of the original show british surrealism and beyond treasures from southampton city art gallery will be on display for the duration of treasure house fair 25 30 june 2026 at the royal hospital chelsea genius and caprice wunderkammer surrealism and the contemporary collector june 19 2026 by victoria comstock kershaw an arts writer journalist and critic the most ordinary things the most common and familiar wrote montaigne if we could see them in their true light would turn out to be the grandest miracles of nature he was writing in the 1580s before the wunderkammer had a theory of itself but he could have been writing its manifesto the collecting impulse that swept through the courts and merchant houses of renaissance europe ran on a conviction that the surrealists would pick up on and return to that the right object placed in the right proximity to the wrong other object could make the familiar as surrealist andré betron would put it centuries later convulsively strange the earliest version of this juxtapositional style of collecting was the studiolo a private room in a renaissance palace where a collector arranged objects as a material self portrait francesco i de medici filled his in florence with instruments minerals and automata this positioned him as sovereign of the world in miniature both a representation of the collector s own wealth and intellect and a macrocosmic reflection of their society and universe by the sixteenth century this had metastasised into the wunderkammer literally room of wonders which organised its holdings into two governing categories naturalia things produced by nature and artificialia things wrought by human hand ferrante imperato cataloguing his neapolitan collection in 1599 described his objects as created by the genius of man or the caprice of nature a contemporary wunderkammer echoing the tradition of cabinets of curiosity where the boundaries between science art and collecting dissolve the tension between those two forces was where the wunderkammer lived the most coveted objects were always those that sat uncomfortably in both categories at once mirabilia marvels that occupied the boundary between categories the object that was simultaneously a natural specimen and a working artifact generated a specific kind of attention one that later theorists of the surrealist object would recognise immediately francis bacon writing in 1605 dismissed the wunderkammer as frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness intending it as a condemnation the enlightenment duly obliged by the eighteenth century the cabinet had been essentially rationalised out of existence dispersing its contents throughout the disciplinary order of the modern museum and linnean taxonomy naturalia went to natural history and artificialia went to decorative arts the enlightenment gallery at the british museum can act as an illustration of this division the productive confusion between them was resolved the mirabilia had nowhere to go andré breton luckily knew where to find them working in the early twentieth century he re animated european pre englightment instincts with his flea market wanderings this led to his conceptualisation of the objet trouvé as well as an insistence that beauty should be convulsive arresting disruptive of rational order or not at all the surrealists were drawn to the wunderkammer model precisely because it predated the disciplinary order of locke linnaeus and darwin it offered a historical precedent for organising objects through analogy and psychological association instead of the scientific taxonomy that had characterised the previous century when the international surrealist exhibition opened in london in june 1936 to over 23 000 visitors in three weeks it staged itself according to the logic of the mirabilia by using categorical instability as the governing principle that exhibition s catalogue designed by max ernst priced at sixpence is now being shown by pater harrington at this year s fair the document of that moment now itself a collectible object has migrated over ninety years from printed matter into artifact the categories as ever h...