Sale-rooms
The trade in driftwood
Alistair McAlpine
very once in a while, you come across a lot in an auction that shows the auction houses for what they really are: not the grand institutions they purport to be, but rather sellers of the driftwood of life, organisations that ease the passing of the obscure, the unwanted, the curious, and sometimes a masterpiece, from one hand to another. Such a lot is to be found in Bonham's sale of Marine Paintings and Works of Art next month (11 and 12 August). Lot 100 comprises an oil kettle, purportedly from the Queen Mary, a carafe and a glass, a Cunard ladle and a Howard Smith Line spoon, together with an etched ostrich egg portraying one of the ships fly- ing the home flag of the Union Steamship Co. — estimate £50–£80.
It is a lot like this which shows how auc- tion houses, in times past, used to conduct their business, and jolly good fun it was for all concerned. It left the collector of oil kettles delighted with the purchase of a his- toric example of that genre but puzzled as to what to do with the spoons and the ostrich egg. Of little value to the kettle col- lector, they could be passed on to a dealer in spoons, who could then sell them at a good profit. The egg, being in turn of little value to dealers in spoons, passed at a small price to a dealer in etched eggs, who sold it at a large price . . . and so the antique trade was made, one dealer putting a high price on an object that another put a low price on, and then vice versa.
The sale-rooms over a period of 25 years put a stop to all this by employing experts whose job was to know who valued what. No longer were bargains to be found in mixed lots, nor lots made up of objects dis- parate in origin and type found lumped together at London auctions.
`Hey, honey, he's home.' Bonham's Marine auction contains 516 lots, varying from ship models to ship paintings. Lot 168 is an interesting exam- ple, with an estimate of £400–£600: a mahogany-planked carvel-built pond yacht circa 1910, built by an Admiralty architect for the present owner's father, who was a clerk in the Naval store office at Chatham dockyard. The owner remembers being taken in a shift on the River Medway by his father to sail this yacht in the 1920s.
I was rather taken with lot 59, Captain Sir William Peel's telescope. Captain Sir William, VC, RN, the son of Robert Peel, was awarded the Victoria Cross for service during the Battle of Inkerman. He served in the Second China War of 1857 and was captain of the Shannon during the Indian Mutiny, when he led a naval landing party to the relief of Lucknow. This telescope, once the property of a man who played a part in a remarkable period of British his- tory, seems cheap. There can be no middle- aged man contemplating a round of golf this week-end who, if he was brought up on the works of A.J. Henty, would not give his eye teeth for such an object, not to men- tion the £500 that Bonhams suggests as an estimate.
This week Sotheby's are selling books, prints and drawings from the Cavanagh theatre collection — a fine collection for which the catalogue itself will, in time, become a collector's item. Lot 95 appealed to me: Kiraley's 'Venice, the Bride of the Sea', a grand historic and romantic specta- cle and aquatic pageant. Also in that lot is Kiraley's 'Constantinople or the Revels of the East: a Grand Terpsichorean Romantic and Lyric Spectacle and Aquatic Pageant'. These productions, described in the guides offered for sale, were held at Olympia. The Kiraley Brothers produced some of the most spectacular entertainments of the late 19th century. You have only to flick through the contents of this lot to see that by comparison the efforts today of Andrew Lloyd Webber seem very small beer.
This sale also contains a number of mez- zotints taken from the paintings of De Wilde and Zoffany, the originals of which are hung in the Garrick Club. What a shame that the Cavanagh collection is to be broken up. But then what a chance for a myriad of new collectors interested in the literature and ephemera of the theatre to start collections of their own.
Also this week, Christie's are selling a carefully selected collection of modern fur- niture. The property of Lisa Bruce, a well- known fashion designer, it includes a number of prototype pieces by Tom Dixon. These lots have modest estimates mostly in the £200–£300 range. I asked Liza Bruce's husband, Alvis Vega, why they are selling this marvellous furniture. 'Room,' he said, `We need more room for my own work.' I recalled the last show I had seen of Alvis's work, where many of the pieces were very large and all of them extremely heavy. They were nevertheless, quite wonderful.
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