James Gurney

Just as quartz watches (and later, smart watches) signally failed to kill off traditional watchmaking, so the advent of sat nav and Google Maps has seen a resurgence of interest in real maps. As with watches, the obsolescence of their obvious use has revealed what lies beneath: layers that tell stories of craft and history, of technology and ambition, of people. From the dragons of medieval mappa mundi to the Sykes-Picot line and the 34th parallel, maps can fire imaginations and stoke resentments, a phenomenon Helen Sunderland-Cohen understands better than most. She’s custodian of the Sunderland Collection, founded by her father, Dr. Neil V.

Old Masters has long been yesterday’s story as contemporary art surged away from the dusty legacy market. But just as the interesting times that we live in have investors heading for gold in their droves, the value of certainty is a rising stock in the art market, a tendency on vivid display at TEFAF art fair at Maastricht in the Netherlands this spring. Certainty of long-term value, certainty of supply and of provenance are some of the qualities that are drawing collectors back to Old Master categories, but add better curation, services and the perception that prices reflect intrinsic worth more than hype and the smiles all round as TEFAF closed are easy to account for.

Away from the hard-luxury world of Lalique bottles (sorry, “decanters”) art labels, and rare-wood boxes, the whiskey world has evolved a niche that focuses on data and details and speaks more directly to a younger audience. Independent bottling favors discovery and knowledge over branding or partnerships, and typically these whiskeys are from casks that the distillers use to adjust larger batches – achieving consistency across large volumes doesn’t happen by accident. The casks will be the same age and have the same water and malt but will have been matured in different conditions.