Sworders is offering property from 9 Phillimore Terrace, Kensington, on September 13-14.
Bonhams, Dreweatts, Sworders and Woolley & Wallis are among the auction houses planning events.
Bonhams will offer the contents of Kinsham Court in October. For more than a century the house has been the home of the Arkwright family (of Industrial Revolution fame) but it was also brief ly the childhood home of Florence Nightingale. The house was put on the market earlier this year and its contents are being auctioned from Knightsbridge on October 12.
Among the highlights is a studio of Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97) group portrait of Richard and Mary Arkwright with a baby estimated at £50,000-70,000 and a pair of George III marquetry commodes guided at £80,000-120,000.
Home to an art dealer
Next month Essex saleroom Sworders is offering property from 9 Phillimore Terrace, Kensington – home to art dealer Sir Jack Mervyn Frank Baer (1924-2016) and his wife Diana.
Sir Jack is remembered as one of the most enduringly successful and well-regarded London picture dealers of his generation. The man who built Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox into a world-class concern, from 1977-80 he was chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers, while his work with the Museums and Galleries Commission as chairman of the acceptance in lieu panel is said to have saved more than £150m worth of art for the nation.
Pictures from the Baer collection will be offered in the autumn with many fine antiques – including a group of 17th century Florentine pietra dura animal panels – forming part of Sworders’ Fine Interiors sale on September 13-14.
Exbury House contents
Woolley & Wallis has held auctions of items from Exbury House over a number of sales since 2021 and continues this autumn with selected pieces in its Furniture, Works of Art & Clocks sale on October 5.
The Hampshire country house was bought by Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882- 1942) in 1919 with proceeds from the sale of the house he inherited from his uncle, the great art collector Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918).
The 18th century home was remodelled in the 1920s and again after the Second World War under the direction of Lionel’s son, Edmund (1916- 2009) and featured many items from Alfred’s collection.
Designers' collection
Also in October, collections from two historic homes decorated by interior designers Oliver Messel and Christopher Gibbs are coming to auction at Dreweatts. Flaxley Abbey in Gloucestershire, a former Cistercian monastery and now a Grade I-listed manor, had its interiors designed by Messel. Items from the house will be offered at Donnington Priory near Newbury on October 3.
The following day Dreweatts will hold an auction titled Chilham Castle: The Selected Contents from a Christopher Gibbs Interior.
Chilham, in Kent, was built in 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges (1583-1639) and adapted throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Since 2002, the castle had been home to the Wheeler family. The late financier Stuart Wheeler and his wife Tessa, a photographer, worked with designer Christopher Gibbs alongside Jane Ormsby- Gore and Gibbs’ partner Peter Hinwood to decorate the home.
