The Library

English School, 19th Century - A Parsee Gentleman of Bombay

oil on canvas - 60 x 43 3/8 in. (152.5 x 110.8 cm.) - Estimate: 10,000 - 15,000 British pounds

Notes: The sitter is believed to be one of the wealthy Parsee merchant elite of early 19th Century Bombay. Many such merchants and ship owners had arrived in the city and made their fortunes in connection with the East India Company. The port of Bombay can be seen through the window, hinting at the source of the sitter's wealth and status.

The Parsees had fled from Persia to India in the early Middle Ages, and maintained a close-knit community based on their Zoroastrian religion. Whilst guarding their unique community, they were quick to adapt to British rule and British customs during the Raj, suggested in the present portrait by the sitter's adoption of elements of British dress such as the starched white collar layered beneath his otherwise opulent robes.

Parsee merchants profited from the thriving cotton trade with China in the early 19th Century, and perhaps the sitter dealt in the fine cotton of which his inner robe is woven. Or he may have been the tea trade, symbolised by the teacup on the tray to his right.

AN ANGLO-INDIAN EBONY CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE - CIRCA 1850-1860, PROBABLY MADRAS

The later belge granite marble top above a pierced foliate-carved frieze on a foliate-carved column and cross base with four Canova's lions with foliate-carved bracket feet on brass castors - 31¾ in. (80.5 cm.) high; 59½ in. (151 cm.) diameter - Estimate: 15,000 - 25,000 British pounds

Provenance: Anonymous sale, Sotheby's London, 30 November 2001, lot 111.

Notes: This richly carved ebony table is likely to have been made in Madras, southern India, circa 1850-60. It relates to one now in the Victoria & Albert Museum with legs composed of lion monopodia, each corner of the plinth resting on a lion couchant and a deep florally-carved frieze. Its design may be derived from W. Blackie's Cabinet-Maker's Assistant, 1853 or William Smee & Sons, Designs for Furniture, 1850-55 (see E. T. Joy, Pictorial Dictionary of British 19th Century Furniture Design, 1977, p. 485). The thistle carved frieze may be associated with a number of Scottish cabinet-makers resident in Calcutta from the second half of the 19th Century, such as Steuart & Co. and Hamilton & Co. (A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India & Ceylon, London, 2001, pp. 145 & 282).

The inclusion of the carved thistles and Canova lions to this table is also indicative of the presence of European and even Scottish patrons in Madras from the mid-19th Century onwards. Architectural motifs on Indian furniture from this period became more common as a result of ex-patriot commissions.

An Irish mahogany armchair - circa 1820-30 - Estimate: 6,000 - 9,000 British pounds

The Sydne Hall

AN EMPIRE ORMOLU-MOUNTED MAHOGANY COMMODE À VANTAUX CIRCA 1800, IN THE MANNER OF GEORGES JACOB

Applied with neo-classical mounts, the later mottled marble top above a frieze drawer with two doors below enclosing four sliding trays flanked by turned column uprights on a plinth base, with paper labels to the reverse with indistinct inscriptions - 37¾ in. (96 cm.) high; 55 in. (140 cm.) wide; 23¼ in. (59 cm.) deep - Estimate: 15,000 - 25,000 British pounds

Provenance: The Hon. Murtogh Guinness.

Notes; The finely cast à la antique mounts of this impressive cabinet relate to the influential designs after the antique of Messrs Percier and Fontaine in their Recueil de Décorations Intérieures of 1802. It is likely to have been made by the firm of Georges Jacob and Francois-Honoré-Georges Jacob, the favoured cabinet-makers of Napoleon's court.

A DUTCH WALNUT ARMCHAIR - CIRCA 1750

Of large size, upholstered in close-nailed Rescht 19th Century embroidery within a foliate-carved frame, the arched padded back above padded outswept arms on cabriole legs with scroll feet, the inside of one leg inscribed in ink '586', old repairs - Estimate: 4,000 - 6,000 British pounds

Notes: The richly carved chair has a tall triumphal-arched back in the manner of Dutch armorial-decked shields appropriate for Stadholder's chairs. One such chair from the Amsterdam Town Hall Council Chamber is thought to have provided a throne in 1768 for the Stadholder Prince William V (see R. Baarsen, Dutch Furniture 1600-1800, Amsterdam, 1993, pp. 108-109). This present chair is serpentined in the picturesque Louis XV fashion, with its Cupid-bowed cresting terminating in waved volutes, while flowers in bas-relief festoon the pilasters as well as the lambrequined cartouche of the seat rail, whose truss-scrolled pilasters terminate in plinth-supported volutes. This richly moulded frame, wreathed in addorsed and scalloped reeds evoking Pan's Arcadia, relates in particular to 'French Chair' patterns with Chinese-figured upholstery issued by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754.

A PAIR OF CHARLES X BRONZE AND ORMOLU CANDELABRA - CIRCA 1825

Each in the form of a foliate handled urn on square plinth applied with mounts, with lamp shades - 25¼ in. (64 cm.) high (excluding shades) (2) - Estimate: 4,000 - 6,000 British pounds

The Dining room

Charles Philips (1708-1748) - Group portrait of a family

possibly members of the Vernon family, with a servant, in an elegant interior - signed and dated 'CP[linked]hilips. pinxit 1733.' (lower left) - oil on canvas - 36½ x 53½ in. (92.7 x 135.9 cm.) - Estimate: 50,000 - 80,000 British pounds

Provenance: Presumably by descent to John Vernon of Wherstead Park (1776-1818) and by inheritance at Wherstead Park, to his sister
Lady Harland (née Arethusa Vernon) (1777-1860), wife of Sir Richard Harland, Bt. (d. 1848), Wherstead Park, to her first cousin
Charles Vernon, formerly Charles Jenkin (1790-1863), Wherstead Park, and by inheritance to
Charles Edmund Dashwood (1857-1935), Wherstead Park, Ipswich ('The Dashwood Heirlooms'); Christie's, London, 26 June 1914, lot 104 (100 gns. to Sir Hugh Lane).
Sir Hugh Lane (+), Lindsay House Cheyne Walk, London; Christie's, London, 6 July 1917, lot 114 (sold 130 gns. to Conody[?]).

Notes: On both occasions the picture was sold at Christie's - in 1914 and 1917 - it was described as 'The Family of Admiral Vernon: The interior of an apartment, with the Admiral and his family about to take tea', while a plaque attached to the frame gives it the title 'Tea Party in Virginia'.

The picture's Dashwood provenance makes it quite possible that the sitters are members of the Vernon family. John Vernon of Wherstead was left in his uncle's will, General Charles Vernon (1719-1810), 'all my family pictures together with all those of Royal Personages to be kept and preserved by him as heirlooms'. Having descended through John Vernon's sister, Lady Harland (née Arethusa Vernon), to her cousin, Charles Jenkin, Wherstead Park then passed to Charles Edmund Dashwood, whose grandmother, née Marianne Sarah Rowley, was a niece of Sir Robert Harland.

The date of the picture (1733) does not seem to fit, however, with the identification of the sitter as Admiral Vernon (1684-1757), who only married Sarah Best in circa 1729, and only had one son who survived infancy. Admiral Vernon's elder brother James (1677-1756) had, by 1733, bought the estate of Great Thurlow, Suffolk, married and had children, although his wife Arethusa died in 1728, and his four known children, born between 1712 and 1719, do not obviously correspond with the ages of sitters in the picture.

The style of the interior is that of circa 1710, but is most likely fictitious. One intriguing detail is the Royal crown forming the top of the chandelier, which is placed prominently above the sitters. It is that of the Prince of Wales and seems likely to indicate a close association between the sitters and Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751). One suggestion has been Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore (d. 1715), groom of the bedchamber and art advisor to Frederick Prince of Wales, and King George II's governor of Virginia. However, Charles Calvert did not marry until 1730 and his son and heir was only born in circa 1731. This painting might be compared with Philip's group portrait of The Strong Family now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which was executed in 1732 and, interestingly, includes two mirrors topped with fleurs de lys of the Prince of Wales.

A SET OF EIGHT WILLIAM IV MAHOGANY DINING-CHAIRS - CIRCA 1835, PROBABLY IRISH

Each upholstered in close-nailed dark green buttoned oil-cloth, with a waisted back on turned legs, the seat-rail of one branded 'Mullen Bros. Auctioneers and Valuers Oldcastle - Co. Meath' (8) - Estimate: 10,000 - 15,000 British pounds

Notes: These comfortable chairs reflect the robust early 19th Century French/Grecian fashion with Ionic-scrolled tablet rails and 'Pan' reeded and urn-capped columnar legs. They typify the George IV fashion, driven by the Wyatt dynasty of architects through cabinet-makers and upholsters such as Messrs. Gillows of London and Lancaster. The back's Grecian-scrolled uprights feature on a pattern for an 'elegant antique' or 'Roman' chair pattern with accompanying 'Grecian footstool' in R. Ackermann's 1810 Repository of the Arts. They were considered appropriate for a variety of rooms and were intended to be executed in mahogany, or else japanned and gilded en suite with the other furniture.

A very similar set of eight chairs sold from the Collection of the Marquis and Marquise de Ravenel, Christie's London, 21 & 22 November 2007, lot 44, for £16,000.

A PAIR OF ITALIAN WHITE MARBLE ALLEGORICAL FIGURES EMBLEMATIC OF AUTUMN AND WINTER - LATE 18TH CENTURY

Both standing by a tree-trunk support on integral circular base - 39 in. (99 cm.) and 35½ in. (90 cm.) high (2) - Estimate: 12,000 - 18,000 British pounds

The Drawing room

AN IRISH GEORGE IV MAHOGANY BREAKFRONT BOOKCASE - CIRCA 1825

Of monumental size, the triangular pediment centred with a plain shield above twelve glazed doors enclosing adjustable shelves, with twelve reeded doors below, on plinth base - 152 in. (386 cm.) high; 225 in. (571.5 cm.) wide; 26 in. (66 cm.) deep - Estimate: 50,000 - 80,000 British pounds

Provenance: By repute removed from Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, Co. Tipperary, Ireland prior to the castle's demolition in 1957.
Later bequeathed to Rockwell College, Cahir, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.

Notes; The bookcase is designed in the Grecian manner with its temple pediment crowned by an escutcheon-bearing stepped plinth for a bust, that is echoed by the projecting plinth-capped side cabinets. The bookcase evokes lyric poetry with pilasters capped by Venus-pearled paterae accompanied by Apollo palms on the cabinet's paired Composite pilasters. Its commode doors are sculpted with robust reed gadroons in the manner of trompe l'oeil books in Elizabethan linen-fold fashion.

The robust architecture of the bookcase reflects the Regency fashion promoted by the The Repository of Arts magazine issued from 1809 to 1828 by Rudolph Ackerman, such as the pattern for a Grecian bookcase designed on correct principles and published in 1824 (January, III, 3, pl. 3, p.59).

The bookcase is likely to have been commissioned by Cornelius O' Callaghan, 1st Viscount Lismore (1775-1857), and designed for Shanbally Castle, Co. Tipperary following its completion to the designs of the architect John Nash (d.1835), Surveyor General of the Board of Works of George, Prince Regent, later George IV.

Shanbally Castle is described in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland, by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin & Nicholas K. Robinson, p. 136, as 'John Nash's most important and largest Irish Castle. Built c.1806...the castle in good repair was sold in 1954 and despite protests in the press was demolished in 1957. Its destruction was one of Ireland's great architectural losses this century'.

AN OAK, SATINBIRCH AND FRUITWOOD ARCHITECTURAL MODEL OF THE MAISON CARRÉE, NÎMES - LATE 19TH/20TH CENTURY

Of large size, with thirty fluted columns with gilt-composition capitals - 24 in. (61 cm.) high; 37½ in. (95.5 cm.) long; 17½ in. (44.5 cm.) wide - Estimate: 15,000 - 25,000 British pounds

Notes: The Maison Carrée at Nîmes in southern France is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the Roman Empire. It was built c. 19-16 B.C. by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, also the original patron of the Pantheon, and was dedicated to his two sons, Gaius Julius Caesar Vipsanius and Lucius Caesar, adopted heirs of Emperor Augustus.

TWO PAINTED AND CARVED WOOD STAG'S HEAD WALL TROPHIES - LATE 17TH OR EARLY 18TH CENTURY, PROBABLY SOUTH GERMAN

With real antlers and polychromed wood pierced shields, redecorated - 65 in. (165 cm.) high (2) - Estimate: 8,000 - 12,000 British pounds

Notes: A similar set of four German polychrome decorated and parcel-gilt stag's heads and a single English painted and parcel-gilt stag's head were in the Von Bülow Collection, sold Sotheby's New York, 28-29 October 1988, lot 341.

About the collection

English country house taste is reflected throughout the collection of 245 lots of English, Irish, European and Anglo-Indian furniture, works of art, garden sculpture and pictures.

A striking group of 30 works of art made in the Indian subcontinent under British patronage is highlighted by an Anglo-Indian ebony circular centre table made in Madras, circa 1850; and three mid-19th century Ceylonese ebony and caned sofas.

The evocative portrait of a Parsee Gentleman of Bombay is a vivid reminder of the strong Anglo-Indian trading links.

Especially interesting is an Indian screen executed in the Kurnul District of South India with floral panels of raised gesso 'lacquer'. So striking is the effect of this work that Lady Curzon used panels of this type to decorate the walls of her boudoir at the Circuit House, Delhi.

Irish furniture is well represented by a monumental Irish George IV mahogany breakfront bookcase, circa 1825, formerly from Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, Co. Tipperary; and an Irish brown oak extending dining-table, circa 1850, formerly from Ballynegall House in Co. Westmeath.

Other pieces of furniture with historic Irish provenances include Mount Juliet, Co. Kilkenny, Preham House, Derry and Merrion Square, Dublin.

A highlight of the pictures in the collection is Charles Philips's (1708-1748) Group portrait of a family, possibly members of the Vernon family, with a servant, 1733.

Amongst the 20 lots of highly decorative garden pieces is a handsome late 18th century Italian, white and cipollino marble bust of Marcus Aurelius.

Christie's. A HOUSE ON THE WILTSHIRE DOWNS. London. 6 March 2008