I HAVE written several times recently about auctions that brought to mind the spate of contents sales held on the premises during the 1970s and 1980s and the dispersal of Robert Kime's personal collections by Dreweatts last month was another such occasion. Although the auction was not held on the actual premises, the auctioneer had done a fine job of approximating the atmosphere at its base, Donnington Priory in Newbury, Berkshire.
Robert Kime (1946-2022) preferred to label himself an 'assembler', rather than an interior decorator, and would not big himself up in the American way as a cap-D 'Designer'. Assembler also suited him better than collector, as his accumulations were not tightly focused, although themes and threads ran through and drew them together. Egyptian antiquities, for instance, led to Edward Lear's watercolours of the Nile and Lear-I speculate to the Modern British artists that his style foreshadowed. Not only quality was important to Kime; he also valued stories and provenance. As his daughter, Hannah, has said, 'my father's treasures were as cherished as friends'.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 01, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 01, 2023-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
