The auction house had hoped to conduct the sale onsite but the contents will now be moved to Stansted Mountfitchet for dispersal on April 17-18.
The current house at North Mymms - four miles from Hatfield and six from St Albans - was built in the last days of the 16th century for the Coningsby family, High Sheriffs of Hertfordshire. The building has been remodelled and resold a dozen times across four centuries and most recently has been used as a corporate training centre.
Christie’s conducted a house sale here in 1979 for the descendants of the Anglo-American banker Walter Hayes Burns (1838-97), who purchased the estate in the 1893 to accommodate a growing art collection.
The 19 large tapestries remained in the house following the Christie’s sale when they sold collectively for close to £300,000.
Most of these tapestries, created in weaving workshops across northern Europe from the mid 16th to the mid 18th century, were collected by the Burns family. The group includes two part sets that came to the house via financier and collector John Pierpont Morgan (brother of Mary Burns) who acquired them from the Palazzo Verde in Genoa.
Four decades later, they will carry estimates of around £20,000-30,000 each.
In total, with over 100 paintings, good examples of English and Continental furniture and more typical country house fare, the sale will number around 650 lots with an estimate of about £1m.
