November 2015 – Toovey’s Blog

The Collection of the Late Baroness Herries of Terregles

Angmering Park House, home to the Late Baroness Herries of Terregles

Toovey’s Fine Art Auctioneers are offering the principal contents of Angmering Park House, the home of the Late Baroness Herries of Terregles, as a single-owner collection at their Washington salerooms on Monday 7th December 2015.

Baroness Herries of Terregles (1938-2014) was the 14th holder of the barony. She inherited the title from her late father, the 16th Duke of Norfolk and 13th Lord Herries of Terregles, upon his death in 1975. Born Anne Elizabeth Fitzalan-Howard, she was the eldest of four daughters and grew up at Arundel Castle, the Norfolk’s family seat in West Sussex.

Lady Anne shared her family’s love of horses from a young age and would become a well-known racehorse trainer and the second wife of Colin Cowdrey, later Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge, one of England’s most celebrated cricketers.

In 1970 she moved to her paternal grandmother’s home, Everingham, in East Yorkshire. There she became Master of the Middleton Hounds. In 1979 she returned to Sussex, making her home at Angmering Park House on the Angmering Park Estate, close to her childhood roots at Arundel. Horse-racing was in Lady Anne’s blood and she set about training racehorses with notable success.

Lady Anne’s life was always rooted in the countryside and most especially in the folds of the Sussex Downs. Her home, too, reflected the best of traditional English country house taste.

Alfred Bennett – ‘Arundel Castle and the Arun Valley’, late 19th Century oil on canvas — Alfred Bennett – ‘Arundel Castle and the Arun Valley’, oil on canvas

The delightful oil painting by Alfred Bennett (1861-1923) is one of the lots entered from the collection. It captures a familiar view of Lady Anne’s childhood home, Arundel Castle, and is expected to realise £800-1200.

A set of four George II cast silver Rococo candlesticks by Alexander Johnston

Amongst the silver is a beautiful set of four George II candlesticks by the London maker Alexander Johnston. They date from 1751 and 1752. The Rococo taste is reflected in their decoration with foliate nozzles, shell moulded sconces, waisted baluster stems and leaf scroll bases. They are estimated at £3000-5000.

A Regency rosewood writing table attributed to Gillows of Lancaster

The Regency rosewood and gilt metal mounted writing table has been attributed to the famous cabinet makers Gillows of Lancaster. The familiar anthemion key escutcheon and six-point star handles are to be found on other examples of Gillows furniture. It carries a pre-sale auction estimate of £1500-2500. It is one of several pieces of furniture which have been attributed to Gillows of Lancaster in this sale.

I have always held a fond admiration for Lady Anne and her family. They have made such a remarkable and generous contribution to our community in Sussex. It has been my privilege to accompany them over many years through their charitable activities and, like so many others, I have valued their friendship and support. I am, therefore, delighted that Toovey’s are offering the principal contents of Angmering Park House at our salerooms at Spring Gardens, Washington, West Sussex, RH20 3BS. The sale provides an extraordinary insight into the life of a remarkable family.

Viewing for the sale of the Collection of the Late Baroness Herries of Terregles, and Toovey’s series of other Christmas auctions, begins this Saturday morning, 28th November 2015. For more details and to preview the auction go to www.tooveys.com or telephone 01903 891955. I look forward to seeing you there!

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 25th November 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.

The Victorian Vending Machine

3078-electricity — Postcard Advertising Electricity for the Home

Today, it would be difficult to contemplate life without electricity. A world without lights, plugs, computers, televisions and telephones might sound appealing to some, but would be unimaginable to most. Rewind about one hundred years and companies were trying to persuade the public to adopt this new resource. The advertising postcard above offered earlier in the year by Toovey’s tries to sell the idea of cheerful evenings at home with electricity.

Councils were also being targeted to illuminate the city streets with electric street lamps, a slightly harder sell as many had only recently invested in gas lamps to guide the public through the smoggy streets. Needless to say they were convinced by the electrical illuminant and never looked back.

2640-Pluto©Toovey's — Bronze mask believed to be 'Pluto' from a Victorian Gas Lamp Vending Machine

The gas-lamps produced a lot of wasted heat. In 1895, a solicitor, Mr H.M. Robinson, conceived the plan of making hot water (a scarce commodity among the working classes) at a price the public could afford by utilizing the lamp’s by-product of heat. After a successful patent application the Hot Water Supply Syndicate was created, later changing its name to The Pluto Hot Water Supply Syndicate.

At the Great Exhibition of 1897, a demonstration was made of a gas lamp that also included an automatic machine which could dispense a gallon of hot water, or a halfpennies worth of Beef tea essence, Cocoa, Milk, Sugar, Tea or Coffee. The demonstration model worked flawlessly, with as many as 125 halfpennies being taken in one day. In 1898, on the south-east corner of Leicester Square one such gas-lamp was introduced, having been installed in Liverpool and Southwark prior. Each lamp had a thermometer to prove the water’s temperature and a communal enamelled cup chained to the post.

The gas lamp’s success was stymied by electricity, so the interest from other London Districts, Manchester and Glasgow never progressed. While electricity has advanced so many technologies and industries it seems it actually temporarily thwarted the progression of affordable vending machines!

Included in Toovey’s forthcoming auction of Collectors’ Items on the 4th December 2015 is a late 19th Century gilt patinated cast bronze mask in the form of a horned man with open mouth and stuck-out tongue, probably ‘Pluto’ – the dispensing mount of a Victorian gaslight vending machine. Offered as Lot 2640 this Victorian curiosity carries a pre-sale estimate of £100-200.

Fund Raising Auction for Pallant House

Work donated by some of the nation’s leading Modern and Contemporary artists will be sold at auction in the coming fortnight in support of Pallant House Gallery’s £1 million match funding grant. The grant was made by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Catalyst and Endowments funding program.

The grant is conditional on Pallant House Gallery matching pound for pound the £1 million grant with money from private funding by 2016, and their target is in sight!

The first lots under the hammer are at Sotheby’s this week in London, in their Modern & Post War British Art sale.

Closer to home a second auction of works is being held by Toovey’s Fine Art Auctioneers. Bidding has just gone live for this on-line sale. Work has been donated to the auction by artists and patrons. Lots include pictures by Norman Ackroyd, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, Dennis Creffield, Laura Ford, Anna Fox, Jeremy Gardiner, Henry Inlander, Kurt Jackson, Ed Kluz, Henry Moore, Celia Paul, Eduardo Paolozzi, Bruce Rae, David Remfry and Bouke de Vries.

Many of these artists are represented in the gallery’s own collection, or have strong associations with Pallant House’s work.

Amongst my favourites is the bold screen print from 1992, ‘Red Jug and Lamp’, by Patrick Caulfield. The striking economy of line used by this English painter and printmaker is typical of his work. The screen print ‘The Beatles 1962’, by Sir Peter Blake, is a final stage proof signed by this leading British Pop Artist. This iconic image was commissioned by Pallant House Gallery in 2012.

I love Ed Kluz’s work. His pictures provide a fresh voice in the British Romantic tradition. He reinterprets the picturesque uniting us, in our imaginations, with our sense of place in the procession of human history. This talented artist, illustrator and designer brings an antiquarian’s eye to our topography and architecture. The aesthetic of Ed Kluz’s ‘Ilford Manor, Somerset’, donated by the artist to the sale, captures his thoughts and emotional response, as well as the essence of the physical reality. These themes and responses belong to the Romantic tradition. Kluz seeks to look beyond what is immediately apparent, to the spirit of the place.

Simon Martin, Artistic Director at Pallant House Gallery commented ‘The auctions represent a remarkable opportunity for us to reach our target. The donations we have received from major artists reflect just how much the Gallery is valued by the artistic community.’

The funds from the auctions will go to Pallant House Gallery’s endowment fund which was established in 2002. Pallant House Gallery receives no direct subsidies from central Government. The appeal aims, with the HLF Catalyst Appeal match funding, to consolidate a secure funding base to ensure the gallery is able to continue to deliver its successful exhibitions and award-winning learning and community programmes, as well as conserving its important collections.

I am delighted that Toovey’s are donating their expertise and services to this important appeal. Lots being auctioned by Toovey’s will be on view at Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ, from 20th to 27th November 2015. All the bidding is on-line and finishes at 7.30pm on Friday 27th November 2015. You can bid on-line by clicking here, registering, and clicking on the sale.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 18th November 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.

The grant is conditional on Pallant House Gallery matching pound for pound the £1 million grant with money from private funding by 2016, and their target is in sight!

The first lots under the hammer are at Sotheby’s this week in London, in their Modern & Post War British Art sale.

Many of these artists are represented in the gallery’s own collection, or have strong associations with Pallant House’s work.

The funds from the auctions will go to Pallant House Gallery’s endowment fund which was established in 2002. Pallant House Gallery receives no direct subsidies from central Government. The appeal aims, with the HLF Catalyst Appeal match funding, to consolidate a secure funding base to ensure the gallery is able to continue to deliver its successful exhibitions and award-winning learning and community programmes, as well as conserving its important collections.

I am delighted that Toovey’s are donating their expertise and services to this important appeal. Lots being auctioned by Toovey’s will be on view at Pallant House Gallery, 9 North Pallant, Chichester, PO19 1TJ, from 20th to 27th November 2015. All the bidding is on-line and finishes at 7.30pm on Friday 27th November 2015. You can bid on-line by going to www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/tooveys, registering, and clicking on the sale.

Nation’s Remembrance Marked by Reverance and Thanksgiving

The Lord Mayor of Westminster, the Lady Flight, her Chaplain, the Revd. Rupert Toovey, and the Lord Flight, preparing for the service of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey

“We have come to remember before God those who have died for their country in the two world wars and the many conflicts of the years that have followed. Some we knew and loved: we treasure their memory still. Others are unknown to us: to their remembrance too, we give our time…With thanksgiving we recall services offered and sacrifices made…”

These solemn and familiar bidding words were spoken at the Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving on Remembrance Sunday by the Dean, The Very Reverend John Hall, at Westminster Abbey. The night before Her Majesty the Queen, senior members of the Royal Family, and the Prime Minister came together with veterans and members of the public to remember the nations fallen and wounded at the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance. The same bidding prayer had resonated amongst the testimonies during the evening. Paul Jacobs, who had lost his sight whilst helping to save others in Afghanistan, recited a moving citation that he had written. Kathryn Williams, Michelle Stead and Sheila Griffiths-Gibson told of how they had all been widowed when a Hercules had been shot down in Iraq. They acknowledged the value of their friendship, bound together by their shared story. These contemporary tales of the costs of standing up for righteousness were united with the past as 95 year old Squadron Leader, Tony Pickering, spoke of his experience flying Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain, saying “We never gave up control of the sky…we never gave it up.”

The Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall

Last weekend I found myself at the heart of the nation’s acts of remembrance in London as Chaplain to The Lord Mayor of Westminster, Lady Christabel Flight. The wife of former Arundel and South Downs MP, Lord Flight, Christabel is bringing her undoubted energy, talents and qualities to the role of Lord Mayor of Westminster.

On Sunday morning Lady Flight joined with leading military figures in laying wreaths of remembrance in a private ceremony. We entered the Abbey passing before the assembled ranks of veterans and serving service men and women.

Westminster Abbey beneath the grey skies of Remembrance Sunday

There seems to have a been a particular poignancy to the Remembrance celebrations throughout this year as we have commemorated the 70th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and 75 years since the Battle of Britain was fought over the skies of southern England.

We gathered in the west end of the Nave of Westminster Abbey standing beside the grave of the Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought from France to be buried there on 11th November 1920. The grave, which contains soil from France, is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble from a quarry near Namur. On it is an inscription, composed by Herbert Ryle, Dean of Westminster, which includes the words ‘MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF, FOR GOD, FOR KING AND COUNTRY, FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE, FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD’.

As Big Ben rang out 11 o’clock, and the familiar canon rumbled in the distance, in the silence there was an overwhelming sense of the long shadow of history and our place in the procession of human history bound up with faith and nationhood – a tangible sense of loss and gratitude.

These commemorations combined familiarity with reverence. I hope that each of us will be able to find time in this Remembrance Day and week to reflect and offer thanks for the courage of successive generations who have been called, and continue to be called, to fight for the greater cause of justice and concord.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 11th November 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.

Lalique Masterpiece

I am in the Channel Islands visiting family as I write this week’s column. My cousins, the De La Hayes, today, decided to take me to St Matthew’s. The church exterior has been described as the ‘the ugliest church in the Island’. But it has hidden delights for those who venture inside!

The Lalique glass reredos of angels at St Matthew’s, Jersey

St Matthew’s is to be found at Millbrook halfway round St Aubin’s bay, on the south coast of the island of Jersey. It has been a grey day and the fine drizzly rain enfolded us as we walked from the car park towards this plain, concrete clad building. Nothing of the exterior prepares you for what awaits inside. The interior is entirely decorated with Lalique glass.

As you come into the church you are gathered into a space of great peace and light. The unity of design afforded by the work of the famous Parisian glass art designer René Lalique, and the Jersey architect A. B. Grayson, is unexpected and beautiful. Behind the altar the illuminated four metre high glass cross is decorated in relief with lilies. The Madonna lily motif is repeated throughout much of the glass decoration. The cross is flanked by two glass pillars creating a scene which brings to mind the Crucifixion. The Lady Chapel and Vestry are enclosed by glass screens. The Lalique font lends an intimacy to this sacred space.

The Lalique interior of St Matthew’s church

The interior was transformed in memory of the first Lord Trent, Jesse Boot, who founded Boots the chemists and lived in Jersey with his wife Florence. René Lalique and the Boots met in the South of France where they were neighbours. The Lalique glass works were famous for their bold Art Deco designs on vases, bowls and decorative objects. René Lalique was delighted when Florence offered him the commission to decorate St Matthew’s, near Villa Millbrook her Jersey home, to the glory of God and in memory of her late husband.

Lalique had accepted a commission in 1930 to redecorate La Chapelle de la Vierge Fidèle a la Deliverande at Calvados which was severely damaged during the Second World War. This design incorporated six pillars crowned with Madonna lilies, six angels formed the reredos and there was a fifteen panel glass communion rail. All these elements from the French chapel were assembled in the Pavillon de Marsan at the 1933 Paris Exhibition. Many of the components of this earlier design appear to have been incorporated at St Matthew’s, which provides the best surviving example of Réne Lalique’s important glass interior designs. The refurbished St Matthew’s church was completed and dedicated in September 1934.

I am drawn to the Lady Chapel. The heavy glass panel opens smoothly revealing the breath-taking reredos formed of four sculptural Lalique glass angels. Their arms are crossed framing their faces which express a timeless serenity. These monumental figures lead your eyes heavenwards as you pause in prayer, gathered in a space radiant with light.

On Remembrance Sunday we will reflect on the courage of those who fought, and continue to fight and give their lives, so that we might live in freedom. The courage of the Allied forces who fought in the Second World War liberated Europe and the Channel Islands from Nazi occupation. Our corporate acts of remembrance will take place in spaces like St Matthew’s, Jersey and at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, with familiar services marked by church and state. As we approach Remembrance Sunday each of us will reflect on points of love in our lives, and those we have loved and lost in acts of personal remembrance.

By Revd. Rupert Toovey. Originally published on 4th November 2015 in the West Sussex Gazette.