Summers Place Auctions has included an impressive and extremely rare set of four carved marble figures representing the seasons in the first sale this year on 22nd March 2022. Made in France in the late 17th/early 18th century and on later sandstone pedestals, the life-size figures are expected to sell for £120,000 - £180,000. They come from La Granja Vella de Marti Codolar in Barcelona, Spain.
In 1798 the original Granja Vella house was sold to the Milà de la Roca family, from Barcelona, who transformed the old country house into a stately neoclassical house at the beginning of the 19th century. They then added some magnificent gardens and opened the first zoo in Barcelona. The residence is now a home for retired Salesian monks.
The representation of the four seasons in figural form has maintained a remarkable degree of continuity from late antiquity onwards. In Pompeian and Roman frescoes and mosaics, Spring is a young woman holding flowers, Summer has a sickle and ears or sheaves of corn, Autumn grapes and vine leaves and winter, thickly clad against the cold. With some minor variations, the same iconography has been used in this set of seasons. The inspiration for this set almost certainly comes from those created for the gardens of Versailles. The figures of Spring and Winter bear similarities to those produced by the sculptor Jean Thierry (1669-1739), who was court sculptor to both Louis XIV at Versailles and Philip V of Spain for the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain. Engravings of both sculptures titled Flore and l’Hiver were produced by Simon Thomassin, (1655-1733) who was commissioned by Louis XIV to make engravings of all of the sculptures at Versailles published in 1694.
It is with these celebrated works that this remarkable and hitherto unrecorded rare set of four marble seasons can be associated. Carved with a fluidity of movement and panache in marked contrast to the plethora of stilted and formulaic examples carved in the 19th century, their inclusion in this sale represents a rare opportunity to acquire one of the very few sets of life size marble seasons to have come on the market for a considerable time, which marks them out as a rare survival from the period.
Other important works in the auction include a carved Istrian marble wellhead which was made in Venice in the 15th Century and bears a lot of similarities to the wellhead which still stands in the courtyard of the Ca’ d’Oro palazzo in Venice.
It was originally situated, by family repute, at Horton Hall, Northamptonshire, the seat of the Earls of Halifax. Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, who later established the Bank of England in 1721, set about developing the house and estate, surrounding the house with formal gardens in keeping with their growing influence both locally and in Parliament. In the 18th Century large quantities of sculpture and artefacts were brought back from Italy by noblemen on the Grand Tour and it is likely that this wellhead was brought back to England at this time and formed part of the remodelled gardens. Horton Hall was demolished in 1936. Similar wellheads are in the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Correr Museum. It is estimated to sell for £25,000 - £40,000.
A pair of lead figures of Scaramouche and Pantalone, firmly attributed to John Cheere are from circa 1755 with excellent provenance from 19th Century Netherlands, via Italy and Germany until they returned to the UK this century. The two figures from the Commedia dell'Arte, each almost 1 metre high, are expected to fetch £15,000 - £25,000. Statues by John Cheere, who was the leading lead caster in 18th-century England, can be found in the gardens of many of England’s greatest country houses, including Castle Howard, Hampton Court Palace, Syon House, Chiswick House and Keddleston Hall to name but a few. His statues were a feature of any fashionable 18th-century garden until the arrival of Capability Brown and his Arcadian landscapes.
A carved white marble torso of a woman signed Richard Garbe ARA (1876 - 1957) and dated 1931 is 88cm high and estimated at £3,000 - £5,000. Garbe was awarded prizes for his wood carvings by the Turners Company at their annual exhibition at the Mansion House in 1892 and 1893 and he taught at the Central School of Arts & Crafts and was Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art.
Claire Norrington's Leaping Deer bronze, signed and numbered 4/9 is expected to sell for £15,000 - £25,000. Claire graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1991 and has worked as a professional sculptor since that time. As well as completing a number of Public Sculptures, Claire has also undertaken numerous private commissions including works for Marks & Spencer, The General Trading Co and Wessex Children's Hospital, Hampshire. In 1998 she was the youngest artist to be elected a member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors.
The auction also includes some natural history lots and highlights among them are a 1.3 metre long Eurhinosaurus skull from the Lower Jurassic and found in France. The Eurhinosaurs was a type of Ichthyosaur with a very long and slender upper jaw similar in many respects to today's Swordfish. Such well preserved examples are extremely rare as the slender upper jaw is usually missing, as a result this fine example should make £25,000 - £40,000. While an ammonite from Canada carries an estimate of £25,000 - £30,000. The 49.5cm ammonite was found in Alberta and it is rare to find such a large example as most are crushed up. They are fantastically coloured in shades of iridescent reds and greens and have to be seen to be believed.
The Sealed Bid Auction on the 23rd March includes a very impressive Empire Style ormolu mounted mahogany panelled room from circa 1880. Provenance for the room panelling is the Villa Raymond Poincaré, the ex President of France who owned the Villa la Pins in Eze, France. The room sold at Christie's New York in 1998 after the auction for $222,500 inclusive of the buyer’s premium. The room is approximately 533cm long by 456cm wide by 332cm high. The painted canvas ceiling acquired separately for this sumptuously appointed panelled room, which has recently been in use as the boardroom of a company in a central London office block. Made by the house of Bricard (founded in 1782), the ormolu mounts are of the highest quality and since many of the components, including the four large ormolu mounted mahogany panels are identical in size it can be adapted to a different configuration. The room and ceiling are expected to sell for £60,000 - £100,000.
Other quirky lots included in this part of the auction are a rare set of six graduated steel bells by Naylor & Vickers of Sheffield from circa 1860. The largest 100cm high by 126cm diameter, the smallest 65cm high by 70cm diameter. Included in the lot is a report dated 1975 giving a detailed report on the bells which are believed to have originally hung in St Andrew’s Church, Stainland, Yorkshire. The tonal quality of steel rather than bronze, or bell metal, as it was also known, was far inferior and as such steel bells were never produced in large quantities. As such, it is rare to find an original ring of six cast steel bells, which have a visually decorative “appeal” rather than a functional one and are estimated at £1,500 - £2,500.
An historic full size mahogany billiard table by Thurston and Co from circa 1913 carries an estimate of £3,000 - £5,000. It has been removed from Admiralty Arch, Whitehall. This iconic London building at the opposite end of the Mall to Buckingham Palace was commissioned by King Edward VII in memory of his mother, Queen Victoria, and designed by Aston Webb. Completed in 1912, in the past, it served as residence of the First Sea Lord and was used by the Admiralty. Until 2011, the building housed government offices. In 2012, the government sold the building on a 125-year lease for £60m for a proposed redevelopment into a Waldorf Astoria luxury hotel and four apartments.
The firm of Thurston and Co was established in 1799 and have been leading manufacturers of snooker and billiard tables since as well as being granted four consecutive Royal Warrants from William IV to George V. The company still holds records of all the tables made and have confirmed that this table was made in 1913 but that unlike virtually every other table made, the name of the purchaser is blank in their records. One can only assume that since it was made for the residence of the First Sea lord at Admiralty Arch, there was a degree of secrecy involved. When it was installed, the First Sea Lord between 1912-1914 was Prince Louis of Mountbatten, father of Earl Mount-batten who held the same appointment from 1955-1959. The roll call of First Sea Lords during the 20th century encompasses many well known historical figures and one can only speculate who!
An impressive and monumental bronzed fibreglass group of four horses rising out of the waves on the other hand was only made in the late 20th century. An impressive 220 cm high by 550 cm wide and 290 cm deep. It comes from Shepperton Studios and featured in a Spice Girls video, they were then relocated to the roof of Caesar’s nightclub, in London where they stood for about 20 years and are now available for £8,000 - £12,000.
