1928: the Holford sale
The 1928–9 season saw the peak of the inter-World War art market, with Christie’s turnover at more than £2 million for the first time, equivalent today to about £110 million. The peak of that peak was the two-day sale of the Holford Collection of 78 Dutch and Flemish pictures in May 1928, for a total of £416,427 (£22,353,747 today).
Robert Holford (1808–92), who formed it, had inherited a fortune, partly from family involvement in the New River, which supplied London’s drinking water. He also began the development of the Westonbirt Arboretum, continued by his son, a general and courtier, who had no interest in art. In 1893, he sold his father’s prints and draw- ings at Christie’s, including one of the most famous works in the collection, Rubens’s drawing of his wife, Isabella Brant. After his own death, in 1926, the rest of the collection followed her.
On May 1, the rooms were packed and, as an eye witness ‘given a seat by one of the family’, recorded: ‘Mr Lance Hannen mounted the rostrum in an atmosphere rather resembling that of a fashionable “first night”... I was sitting next to a friend, a well-known collector, the late Walter Burns—“Prices are too high for me,” he said.’
The sale opened with a ‘superb little Rembrandt, signed and dated 1634’, which made 10,000 guineas, followed by three more, the most expensive selling for £48,000 guineas (today £2,705,472). Many of these paintings may have been demoted or reattributed by later scholarship, but the prices are no less impressive. Wall Street began its precipitous crash on October 24, 1929. Such peaks were not climbed again for many years.
- - -
Between 1969 and 1973, Huon Mallalieu worked at Christie’s in the English watercolours and prints department. Christie’s anniversary is the subject of a new book, “Going Once: 250 Years of Culture, Taste and Collecting at Christie’s”, published by Phaidon.
-
A well-connected rural playground with 23 acres on the edge of the South Downs National ParkOld House Farm is an impressive family home with a wealth of amenities that would inspire any rural passion.
-
The UK gets its first ‘European stork village’ — and it's in West SussexAlthough the mortality rate among white storks can be up to 90%, the future looks rosy for breeding pairs in southern England.
-
Churchill's dentures, Bruno's boxing glove and Hurst's boot: The strangest auction in the Cotswolds is imminentThe Cotswold Auction Company's February 6 sale features some surprising lots from the Second World War, the world of sport and many many stamps.
-
A dispatch box, a bottle of whisky and some frogs — estate of Baroness Betty Boothroyd going under the hammerItems belonging to the first female Speaker of the House of Commons will be auctioned off for charity next week
-
Jean-Michel Basquiat painting goes under hammer for $110.5 millionBasquiat was 21 years old and still a relative unknown when he painted this piece.
-
Scarfe’s biting satire to go under the hammer at Sotheby’sA selection of cartoons by satirical cartoonist Gerald Scarfe are going under the hammer at Sotheby's.
-
Sotheby’s experts to appraise your antiques during Meissen event at ClivedenA team of experts from Sotheby's will be giving appraisals of antiques during an event organised by porcelain maker Meissen at the beautiful Cliveden House.
-
Long-neglected ‘copy’ turns out to be original Stubbs worth £750,000Gallery owner Archie Parker thought something was amiss when he came across this painting in an online sale catalogue, and he flew to New York to play out his hunch. It paid off.
-
Constable ‘added rainbow after his masterpiece first went on display’One of Britain's greatest-ever artists apparently touched up one of his most famous works to mark the death of a close friend.
-
Princess Eugenie helps boost Children & the Arts charity auction at Christie’sThe princess has helped secure donations of works, and has given her patronage to the sale helping a charity which she says has left her "truly inspired".
