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Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The history of cricket in art is up for sale – this is why it will go at a loss
With perfect timing – just as the gripping Test series between England and India concludes – Dreweatts auctioneers announced the sale of what it describes as 'arguably the finest cricket-themed art and memorabilia collection in the world'. No actual bats, bails or balls, but 146 lots of period paintings and prints that provide a visual record of the game going back to its earliest days. The collection was formed by the late Mark Antony Loveday who died, aged 80, last September. The son of the chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Loveday became a senior partner of Cazenove – the Queen's stockbroker – where he staunchly resisted change until it was merged with the American bank, JP Morgan Chase in 2004. Cricket, however, was his greatest love, having been captain of cricket both at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read modern history. Loveday's collection was 50 years in the making and considered sufficiently important to have parts of it displayed in the MCC Museum at Lord's Cricket Ground. But its import was not in terms of its art historical or commercial value. The most expensive portrayal of a formal cricket match was a 1907 painting by Albert Chevalier Tayler of a Kent v Lancashire match in Canterbury, commissioned by Kent County Cricket Club, which sold for £680,000 in 2006. Bought by the philanthropist Andrew Brownsword, it hangs in the Long Room Pavilion at Lord's. But Loveday's whole collection is only estimated at nearer £40,000. What drove him was not financial or artistic value but a Wisden-like desire to compile contemporary visual records of the history of the game. It's a record of who played (the early 19th-century roundarm bowler William Lillywhite is the most frequently depicted), as well as when and where, together with characterful anonymous sitters and locations regardless of who painted them. One of the joys of this collection, which clearly gave Loveday pleasure in assembling, is the action sighted in an almost encyclopaedic range of historic cricket pitch locations up and down the country. From Lord's and the Oval, through Kent and Surrey in the south, taking in Moulsey Hurst where cricket was first recorded in 1731, it moves on to Eton, Harrow, Oxford, Cambridge, Sandleford Priory in Berkshire with its sloping Capability Brown landscape, then north to Worcester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Durham and up to North Inch in Perth. And Loveday's compass did not stop there, rotating to Switzerland, Canada, Philadelphia, Melbourne, Egypt and Calcutta, where a cricket pitch within a military fort shows soldiers at play in their pith helmets in 1874, showing off to the locals. Some of the locals came to play in England. A handsome portrait is of Colonel Kumar Sri Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji II, known as Ranji, who came to Britain in 1888 at the age of 16 to study at Cambridge and became the first person of colour to play Test cricket for England, before returning to India to become the ruler of the princely state of Nawanagar. Curiously, some of the works for which Loveday paid the most for are now estimated at far less. In 1995, he paid £10,000 for a 1740s drawing of the double wicket version of the game thought to be by Francis Hayman whose original painting of the subject is in the MCC collection. Now downgraded as 'after Hayman' it is estimated at only £2,000. An early 19th-century portrait of a cricketer in stylish white kit, button-up jacket and a red kerchief holding his bat under his arm cost Loveday £11,750 at Christie's in 2002 but is estimated at just £1,500. In the same sale, he splashed out £5,875 on an English school portrait of a casually dressed young man in a landscape leaning on his bat. The painting now comes with a vague attribution to the circle of Francis Grant, the Victorian artist, but a reduced £1,000 estimate. One reason Christie's don't hold traditional sports sales anymore is because that market is not what it used to be. The Loveday collection will go on view at Dreweatts in Newbury on Friday week (14 August) to be sold by live auction on Aug 19 An unmissable highlight of the Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is with us once again this month. And Lyon & Turnbull auctioneers are out on their own with a contemporary art sale that will test the market for the recently deceased Jack Vettriano, the late great rock'n'rollplaywright John Byrne, and the venerable Scottish artist Victoria Crowe, who is reaching the peak of her observational powers in her 80s. The odd one out – because he's not Scottish – is John Kirby, an unsettling figurative painter of ambiguous gender subjects who died this year. In the 1990s, Kirby was hot property – bought by Madonna, and used for album covers and film props. His most memorable screen appearance was the Mike Nichols/Robin Williams comedy, The Birdcage (1996), in which Williams tells his son he can't disguise his father's gay relationship by removing a suggestive picture before prospective in-laws arrive 'because it's art'. Kirby's work was also chosen to illustrate the covers of both Frank Delaney's 1989 novel My Dark Rosaleen, and the 1980s paperback edition of Jean Genet's The Miracle of the Rose, a fictionalised version of his years in a penal colony. Over the years, his fan club of collectors has grown to include actress Whoopi Goldberg, David Hockney, Pet Shop Boys' co-founder Neil Tennant, the fashion designer Thom Browne, and the sculptor, dancer and performance artist Nick Cave (not the Australian punk rocker, that is). Kirby was discovered in 1985 by the art dealer, Angela Flowers, who bought a work from his St Martin's School of Art Degree Show and then staged regular exhibitions for him. Her son, Matthew Flowers, will hold a memorial exhibition for him at his Cork Street Gallery in November. Few works by Kirby have been sold at auction, the highest price being £37,000, though gallery prices for Kirby can range from £5,000 to £150,000. Lyon & Turnbull have several Kirby's for sale this month from the collection of the actor Stephen Jenn, who starred opposite David Bowie in Gunslinger's Revenge (1998). Some are unknown even to Flowers, who describes Kirby as 'intensely private'. His relationship with Jenn, who was Kirby's partner and muse for 10 years, was also kept very private. Estimates for Kirby's work at the sale range from £500 to £5,000. He may not be Scottish, but if Kirby's fan club is anything to go by, his work may well appeal to the theatrical types that frequent Edinburgh during the festival.
BBC News
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Sir Stanley Spencer's belongings sold by grandson at auction
Items that belonged to one of the leading figures in British art between the World Wars, along with some of his work, have been sold at of Sir Stanley Spencer's sketchbooks, a palette and a Bible given to him while he served as a soldier in World War One were amongst those put up for sale by his grandson John Spencer said he was struggling for space for all of the items, having grown up with them in Cookham, Stanley became synonymous with the village, where he was born, and his most famous works are perhaps biblical scenes he set there. "[The items have] been left in the family. I grew up with them in Cookham. I am a Cookham boy; they were in our house when I grew up," Mr Spencer, whose mother Unity was also an artist, work auctioned off at Dreweatts in Newbury on Thursday included work by Mr Spencer's grandmother Hilda Carline, who Sir Stanley divorced in the 1930s."It's just stuff we had. I had lots of the pictures of my grandfather, grandmother, my mother. And I've lived with it all of my life. I have had lots of it on my walls," he added."It's a responsibility looking after them all and it takes a lot of space and it's time for them to find new homes." Portrait of Mrs Carline, Sir Stanley's work of his mother-in-law Anne Carline, sold for £11,430. A long letter Sir Stanley wrote to Hilda Carline in 1937 on wallpaper following the breakdown of their marriage sold for £6, had filed for divorce and went onto marry artist Patricia Preece a week later. But that marriage was never consummated and Preece lived in Sir Stanley's house with her Stanley's palette sold for £3,048. It was the first one to have been sold at auction since one bought by David Bowie sold for £11,000 in 2016. The Bible Sir Stanley received on signing up to the 9th Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment sold for £889 and of two sketchbooks, one sold for £4,445. The other failed to Mr Spencer, the items were sold simply to make room."We've still got sketchbooks and notebooks and other bits and pieces," he said. "I have got loads of letters on file that I have got to work through."There are masses of material and projects still to do. This is just finding new homes for interesting and varied works." You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
The Guardian
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
One of JMW Turner's earliest paintings rediscovered after 150 years
An oil painting of a stormy Bristol landscape has been rediscovered as one of the earliest works of JMW Turner, created when the artist was 17 years old and lost to his canon for the past 150 years. Turner's signature on The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol was discovered in the process of cleaning the painting after it was sold last year. At the time of the sale, the work was attributed to a 'follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson', an 18th-century artist. Dreweatts, the auctioneers, had suggested the work would fetch £600-800, although the buyer is believed to have paid less. Now, in a year of exhibitions and events to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of the man widely considered to be Britain's greatest and most influential artist, the painting is to be sold again. This time it will be auctioned by Sotheby's with an estimated value of £200,000-300,000. 'We are as certain as it's possible to be that this painting is by Turner,' said Julian Gascoigne of Sotheby's. The painting had been examined by 'all the leading Turner scholars alive today who unanimously endorsed the attribution'. As well as the recently revealed signature, there were 'clear references to a painting of this subject' in obituaries of Turner and in early literature on the artist in the years after his death in 1851. But in the second half of the 19th century, 'a series of mistakes were made, which were repeated and compounded, with it described as a watercolour', said Gascoigne. It was omitted from the first complete resume of Turner's work published in 1901, and 'over the course of the 20th century, it was forgotten about as just another relatively minor early watercolour'. The person who bought the painting last year initially thought it may have been the work of Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, a French émigré painter living in London whose studio Turner frequently visited. De Loutherbourg's wife, suspicious that Turner was intent on appropriating her husband's painting technique, eventually threw him out. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol was the first oil painting exhibited by Turner, at the Royal Academy in 1793, the year after it was painted. Based on a drawing in his sketchbook and a watercolour, both held by Tate Britain, it depicts Hot Wells House in Bristol seen from the east bank of the River Avon, now the site of the Clifton suspension bridge, amid swirling storm clouds and tempestuous waters. Hot Wells was a hot spring and spa that was a popular attraction in Georgian England. The painting was first acquired by the Rev Robert Nixon, a customer at Turner's father's barbershop who befriended and encouraged the young artist. Nixon was among the first to urge Turner to paint with oils. 'It gives us a real insight into the ambition that Turner was clearly exhibiting at this early stage of his career, and shows a level of competency in oil painting, which is quite a technical medium,' said Gascoigne. 'It changes a lot of what we know, or thought we knew, about Turner's early work and our understanding of how his technique and style evolved.' Turner applied the oil paint thinly, almost like a watercolour. 'He's feeling his way through the medium, but bringing all the experience he already had as a watercolour painter to his application of oil. 'This technique of washy, translucent glazes of paint is something he comes back to later in his career, in the 1830s and 40s, and is one of the things that allowed him to completely revolutionise the art of painting – breaking down forms, seducing them in light, taking his painting technique towards the level of experimentation and abstraction that we think of today with his late, great masterpieces.' At the time of last year's sale, the painting was 'very dirty, it hadn't been touched for a long period of time, it had very old discoloured yellow varnish on it,' said Gascoigne. The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol will go on public display for the first time in 167 years later this month at Sotheby's in London before being auctioned on 2 July.
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘I'm selling £300k mammoth fossil to restore my stately home'
A music entrepreneur is selling a 10ft-tall woolly mammoth fossil to help fund the restoration of his fire-damaged stately home. James Perkins, a former rave promoter, bought the burnt-out shell of Parnham House in Dorset for £2.5 million in 2020 and estimates that the restoration will cost 10 times that amount. Now, he is auctioning his eclectic collection of rare fossils, taxidermy animals, unusual artworks and furniture. The 448 lots, which are being sold with the Newbury-based auctioneers Dreweatts, are expected to fetch £1.66 million. They include entire prehistoric skeletons, including a woolly mammoth fossil found in Poland that is at least 11,700 years old and is in exceptional condition. It is valued at £300,000. Mr Perkins said: 'This sale ... marks an important milestone in Parnham's evolution ahead of some major structural repair, as the proceeds will help us restore the estate to its former glory and establish a unique destination for lovers of art, design and grand entertainment.' Parnham House is a Grade I-listed historic property dating back to the 1400s and one of Dorset's oldest stately homes. The property was ravaged by fire in 2017 and its owner, the Austrian banker Michael Treichl, was found dead in Lake Geneva two months later. At the time of his death, Treichl was on bail following his arrest for starting the fire and he is thought to have taken his own life. Mr Perkins, 57, who previously bought the 17th-century Aynhoe Park in Northamptonshire and turned it into a party and events venue, hopes to create something similar with Parnham Park. Among the collection being sold by Mr Perkins is a complete 180-million-year-old ichthyosaur skeleton, which is about 9ft long and expected to fetch £180,000. Another ichthyosaur fossil embedded in rock has an estimate of £80,000 and a fossil of a Cretaceous predatory fish that swam the seas 90 million years ago is expected to sell for £150,000. Among the art works of four prints by Damien Hirst with an estimate of £18,000 and tables created by Jacques Duval-Brasseur, including an £18,000 low table made from a petrified tree and gilt bronze. There is also art created by Mr Perkins, including an oil-on-canvas painting of a full moon valued at £8,000, and The Model, a skeleton of a giraffe in heels that has an estimate of £15,000. An ostrich-feather four-posted bed has an estimate of £12,000, while a large royal coat of arms is expected to fetch £10,000. The sale takes place on May 13.
Telegraph
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The only gay couple in a Northamptonshire village who shocked, then lit up, polite society
I knew the house long before they turned up. The handsome old rectory in the Northamptonshire village of Aston-Le-Walls was home to a fellow teenager and she would invite me round to dinner parties. We would glug cheap wine and then use an empty bottle for that game where you spin it twice, and the two individuals that its top points to must snog, to the uproarious glee of the others. A little scandalous, maybe. But not half as outrageous as the couple who then bought the house. It's almost 30 years to the day, and I can recall the ripples, the minor quake, that shook the polite society of Northamptonshire back in the 1990s. Johnnie Lloyd Morgan and Philip Astley-Jones were a gay couple. Not just the only gays in the village, but seemingly the only 'out and proud' same-sex male couple in the county. The baroneted Bufton-Tuftons shifted awkwardly behind their estate desks while their lady wives waited to see which of their friends would be the first to crack, first out of the blocks with a dinner invitation. And as Johnnie now recalls, they came to Northamptonshire with a triple whammy of faux pas: 'We were gay, we were Londoners and we were weekenders.' Then, guess what? News got around that jeweller Johnnie and antique dealer Philip were not just fabulous company but their presence could right the configurations at dinner parties, otherwise flawed by that societal pestilence of widowhood. Recently bereaved women saw their way to cathartic merriment safe in the knowledge that the presence of Philip and Johnnie would enable that vital boy/girl/boy/girl dining table mapping. They were an instant hit. And then came what we all desired: an invitation to a dinner party at their house, seated around a convivially large round table. And what a house it became. Philip's collecting saw the place – every corner, side table, and wall – adorned with his purchases. From Kenyan hippo skulls to 17th-century portraits, his growing hoard was as esoteric as it was occasionally mad. As Johnnie says: 'He had wonderful taste but also an impulse that saw him buying things like a clown's shoe or a plaster model of a foot.' All of which is now in particular focus because Philip died in 2021 and on April 9, much of his collection will go under the hammer at auctioneers Dreweatts. It's both profoundly sad and cathartic for Johnnie, who adds: 'We discussed a sale before he died, and he said he would be happy that his things would find new homes. I see it as breaking up a theatre set but knowing there will be another play that will use it next month.' And, he says, 'I'm quite looking forward to being able to find space on a table to put down a glass.' While a preview of the sale – and there are some 300 lots – will remind us friends of Philip's impeccable eye, it also jogs my memory of how, having grown to love this wonderful couple, we were scandalised a notch further. In 2014, the couple invited another to join them at Aston-Le-Walls. 'There's a new addition and he's drop-dead fabulous,' Philip once told me, adding: 'We're going to need a bigger bed.' Thus Northants got its first gay throuple, and we loved them even more for it. Which just goes to show that the world is a better place when its conventions, its social mores and its attitudes are thrown in the air and the fuddy-duddies get to see how much gayer life is when you throw a few gays into the mix. The actor Sir Ian McKellen told The Times this week that young gay actors in Hollywood should come out. 'I have never met anybody who came out who regretted it,' he said. 'Being in the closet is silly – there's no need for it. Don't listen to your advisers, listen to your heart. Listen to your gay friends who know better. Come out. Get into the sunshine.' And, as Philip and friends demonstrated, people are actually far more relaxed about such things than one might think. Although, personally, I draw the line at clown's shoes.
