10 19th March 2011
london selection Stitching together all the
■ Timing, marketing and estimates all come together to pitch needlework collection
Anne Crane reports
MARCH 2 saw Bonhams (20/12% buyer’s premium) offer an interesting home- produced furnishing mix. A variation on the typical English furniture and works of art menu was a 63-lot hors d’oeuvre of early English embroideries from a well- known collection formed in the early decades of the 20th century.
Richmond collection
of needlework The industrialist Sir Frederick
Richmond (1873-1953), who made his fortune in the textile distribution and retail market, was one of the major collectors of early needlework in the pre- War era. He shared this popular collecting enthusiasm of the inter-War period with other wealthy industrialists like Lord Leverhulme, Sir William Burrell and Irwin Untermeyer. This was a time of rich pickings for
enthusiasts with dispersals like those of Geoffrey Whitehead, Lord Abingdon, Percival Griffiths and Frank Ward, to name just a handful. The Richmond collection was displayed in the baronet’s Bedfordshire home,
Westoning Manor, and his palatial London residence, 10 Kensington Gardens. The latter was recorded in a series of watercolours that he commissioned and this is now a useful record of the range of his collection, as there has already been more than one dispersal by his descendants. One landmark sale took place at
Christie’s South Kensington in 1987. A second was staged at Christie’s King Street rooms in 2001 where, burdened by some very high estimates, a large proportion was unsold. Bonhams‘ sale included 16 lots that
did not get away ten years ago, plus some more material not offered at that time. Bonhams’ estimates were pitched
much lower, sometimes at half the 2001 levels or less. Given that market conditions are less bullish, such caution was all the more necessary. A sizeable crowd gathered for the sale.
There was an audience of around 60, a mix of specialist dealers and consultants such as Witney Antiques and Anne Marie Benson as well as private buyers, some established collectors and others new to this field, but drawn in by crossover marketing. Having handled the Sampson and Horne sale last year, Bonhams had a good list of clients with potential interest in this field. The sale was timed to start at 2pm
to maximise interest from across the Atlantic. America is still a strong market for early English needlework and US
Left and right: two well-preserved silk panels embroidered with silks, metal thread and applied overall with spangles, both probably cushion covers, that made above-estimate prices at Bonhams‘ sale of needlework from the Richmond collection. The example, left, measuring 18½ x 22½in (47 x 57cm), worked with figures of Charles II as Mars and Catherine of Braganza as Venus, surrounded by typical spot motifs of flowers and animals, was contested by two phones and a room bidder before selling for £25,000. The smaller 9 x 12½in (23 x 32cm) panel, right, worked with an image of Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba realised £18,000.
Above: a c.1670 mirror frame with raised-work figures of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza from the collection of Sir Frederick Richmond at Bonhams on March 2 – sold for £20,000. Left: the tortoiseshell-framed 1660s English embroidered mirror frame that led the 63 lots from the Richmond collection when it sold for £28,000. The frame features a camel, horse, (or unicorn), lion and leopard in the angles divided by a rose, carnation, iris and thistle, while the shutters were embroidered with a white man holding a bow and arrow seated beneath a tree to one leaf and a black woman in a feathered skirt smoking a pipe with a parrot. The catalogue stated that the design is a reference to the 1663 foundation of Carolina, named by Charles II in honour of his father.
“While the take-up was high, not everything sailed past those realistic guides and the audience was sensitive to pieces in less than tip-top condition”
bidding certainly emerged, but there was absentee participation from elsewhere, including one telephone bidder who, as paddle 5030, secured at least a dozen lots.
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