Love Wins

Author’s NoteAs I write this book I see in the newspapers that four drawings by Constable found in an attic wrapped in brown paper fetched nineteen thousand pounds yesterday at Sotheby’s The great houses of England were filled with treasures in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries because their owners were ardent collectors. Anxious to preserve these collections for posterity, they entailed their possessions onto the future holders of the title ad infinitum. So many of my friends pleading poverty after the Wars searched their huge ancestral homes for something to sell. One couple discovered a priceless pair of Chinese jade vases in a servant’s bedroom. Another found that the boots were cleaned on a table that was a perfect example of Queen Anne oyster walnut. In the 1920s while showing me a Chinese cabinet, my host accidentally touched a secret drawer, which disclosed a pearl necklace. It was nearly green with age, but recovered its lovely sheen when worn next to the skin. Christie’s opened their sales rooms in Pall Mall in 1766 to compete with Sotheby’s who had opened in 1744. There were at one time sixty auctioneers handling the pictures and furniture that Noblemen wished to sell. Yet even the best valuers sometimes make a mistake. The Earl of Caledon sold the contents of his house a few miles from mine. His daughter was staying with me and we attended the sale. I was not very interested when a small ivory crucifix was knocked down at seventeen pounds. It was subsequently discovered to be unique and was bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum for a sum exceeding six figures!