PROVENANCE, as I have often mentioned here, is one of the elements that must be taken into consideration when a cataloguer is setting the estimates for a work of art. To see the name Hirsch in a list of owners catches the attention, even when it refers not to Robert von Hirsch (1883-1977), the sale of whose collections at Sotheby's was the sensation of 1978, but to the unrelated Leopold (18571932), with no 'von'.
However, Leopold was also an interesting collector, who had arrived in London with only £5 to his name and ended up with a house in 'Millionaires' Row', otherwise Kensington Palace Gardens. One of his paintings came up at Bonhams last month. It was a 193in by 15½in panel of Adam and Eve (Fig 1) by the 'Master of the Embroidered Foliage', who was active in Brussels between 1480 and 1510. The name was coined by Max Friedländer in 1926 because the points of light on his foliage resemble tapestry stitching. Most paintings attributed to him are after Madonnas by Rogier van der Weyden, but this derives from an altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes. In Leopold's 1934 Christie's sale, it made £819; now, at Bonhams, it reached £806,700.
Another interesting provenance at Bonhams was attached to a Sèvres coupe reticulée, or double-walled stem bowl (Fig 4), modelled in 1845 by Hyacinthe Régnier and inspired by original Chinese models, which made $88,500. It was presented to the seven-year-old Comte de Paris, Louis Philippe's heir, who was to spend much of his exile in England when not travelling or fighting in the American Civil War. His extensive tattoos were famous.
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Denne historien er fra August 10, 2022-utgaven av 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.
