After the sales of furnishings and jewels belonging to Jeanne, the film star wife of Baron Eugène de Rothschild from the Austrian branch of the family, in Sotheby’s Paris and Geneva rooms in November, this month it is the turn of their London rooms to sell a selection of jewels and objets d’art that have come from the English branch.
Treasures from the Rothschild Collection, to be offered at Sotheby’s Bond Street on December 12, offers just over 100 lots that came from the collection of Nathaniel Mayer Victor, 3rd Lord Rothschild (1910-1990), inherited from his grandfather Nathaniel, the 1st Lord Rothschild, who lived at 148 Piccadilly and Tring Park, Hertfordshire.
The sale, which is estimated to make over £1m, will feature gold boxes, elaborate Renaissance style jewels, a small group of silver items and Limoges enamels, but the largest section of the sale is given over to a group of 58 neoclassical cameos and intaglios, many of which are by known gem engravers, like the early 19th century agate cameo of the sleeping Venus by Giuseppe Girometti, shown here slightly under twice size.
The rare survival of such a group has led to a request to offer these as a single entity. As a result, Sotheby’s are offering these twice over, giving buyers the chance to acquire either as a group or individually. First, the 58 lots will be offered individually, subject to individual reserves.
Sotheby’s will then offer the entire group as one lot subject to a single reserve. If the highest bid for the group exceeds the single-lot reserve (based on the aggregated value of individual reserves – if lots do not sell – and bids), the group purchaser will prevail over the highest individual bidders.
This is not the first time that Sotheby’s have taken this double route to selling, although it is a practice that only applies occasionally. A previous instance was when Sotheby’s offered the 14 lots comprising the Kildare Toilet Service in an auction from the collection of the late Sir Harold Wernher, Luton Hoo in a two-day sale in May 1995. In that instance the service sold as a whole, for £410,000 hammer, to the Ulster Museum.
Will Venus play a cameo role or take centre stage?
The Rothschilds were spread so extensively across Europe that it is perhaps not surprising to see dispersals from different branches of this extended pan-European family peppering the auction calendar.
