December 2024 – Toovey’s Blog

Love and Hope are at the Heart of the Christmas Story

The story of Christmas reminds us that it is important to love and remain hopeful.

Matthew’s Gospel describes how the Magi visited the infant Christ and are richly depicted in Gerard Dillon’s High Cross Panel from 1949. Shortly after the visiting Magi had departed Joseph was warned by an angel of the Lord that King Herod was planning to kill all the firstborn male children in Judea to protect himself from the threat posed by the newborn “King of the Jews”. Joseph fled with his family to Roman occupied Egypt. The painting after the Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is titled Rest on the Flight into Egypt and shows the Holy Family resting on their journey attended by cherubim. After Herod’s death they were again visited by the angel of the Lord who told them to return to Israel.

After Bartolomé Esteban Murillo – The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

In recent times, and not least this year, there has again been much in our daily lives and the news to remind us of the difficulties of our current time, in particular the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Sometimes it can seem difficult to remain hopeful about the world. And yet the solution is not to be fearful but to be confident of what is at the heart of our nation’s common narrative, the values expressed in the Christian story of Christmas.

As a Christian I draw hope from my belief that on that first Christmas day God came among us as a baby born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. His parents were displaced and without their home. The world over the millennia has often talked of value in terms of the material. By these standards Mary and Joseph had little and yet they knew that they had been richly blessed. What they had been given, this remarkable child, they shared with the world. This intimate Christian story invites us to be active in the world and not spectators. By their example Jesus and his parents leave us in no doubt that acts of kindness to one another and a genuine concern for others can transform our lives and the lives of those around us restoring hope. These values are universally held by people of good heart from all faiths and none. The gift of the message of Christmas is that true value and hope are defined by love and service to others, especially those in need. I wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas.

James Stewart and Harvey the Invisible White Rabbit

A black and white photograph signed by James Stewart holding Harvey

The Christmas edition of The Radio Times was a cause of great excitement in my youth. There was no iPlayer or streaming services so we would mark the films we most wanted to see and their times. Amongst my Dad’s favourites were the James Stewart classics It’s a Wonderful Life and Harvey.

The memory of Harvey has just been brought back to me by an autographed photograph and pen drawing signed by James Stewart of Harvey the 6’ 3” invisible white rabbit which has just sold at Toovey’s in the specialist paper collectables auction for £200. I love that Harvey always wears a bowtie!

The idea for the movie was taken from the 1944/45 Pulitzer Prize winning drama and stage play by Mary Chase. The story centres on the endlessly pleasant Elwood P. Dowd played by James Stewart, and his relationship with a large invisible white rabbit, a Celtic púca, called Harvey. Harvey is Elwood’s best friend and together they often frequent Charlie’s Bar. Elwood lives with his sister Veta and her daughter Myrtle Mae. His relationship with Harvey causes them great embarrassment in front of their friends. With the help of their friend Judge Gaffney Veta and Myrtle Mae plan to have Elwood committed at the local sanitorium. But Veta admits to seeing Harvey herself and is incarcerated whilst Elwood walks free. She is released only for Dr Chumley, the psychiatrist, to encounter and go off with Harvey. A hue and cry ensues. Eventually Elwood is taken back to the sanitorium and is about to be administered with a powerful serum Formula 977 so that he will never see Harvey again. The cab driver saves Elwood from this fate when he demands payment for the ride immediately telling Vita that the serum turns people into everyday unpleasant folk and she rushes in to stop the procedure.

A pen and ink sketch of Harvey signed by James Stewart

Myrtle Mae falls for one of the male nurses. Aided by the charm and kindness of Elwood Dr Sanderson (who has been sacked for earlier releasing Elwood) finds the courage to express his love for the nurse, Miss Kelly. Harvey decides he prefers Elwood’s company rather than Dr Chumley’s and the pair are reunited.

Speaking to Dr Chumley at the sanitorium towards the end of the film Elwood P. Dowd remarks “My Mother used to say to me, she would say, in this world Elwood you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well for years I was smart – I would recommend pleasant, and you may quote me.”

Celebrating 40 Years as an Auctioneer in Sussex

Rupert Toovey fundraising for the Sussex Heritage Trust and the Chichester Community Development Trust at Graylingwell Chapel

As the year begins to draw to a close I have been reflecting on how blessed I am to be have been called to serve people as an auctioneer for 40 years.

The stories of our lives are so often told through the art and objects that accompany us and it is the sharing of these stories, stories of both joys and sorrows, which bind us together with others. The objects are prompts to fond memory reflecting the patchwork quilt of our lives. I am invited to view and value collections across our beautiful county for probate, insurance and sale. I and my colleagues at Toovey’s often accompany people at profound moments of change, they may have lost someone dear to them or are moving, downsizing. Helping people to discern what objects are important in their lives and what should not be sold is vital before advising on what may be released to auction. Another of the great privileges of my life is being invited to support our county’s communities and charities by giving talks and supporting our extraordinary charities and organisations with fund raising events and auctions. There is so much to celebrate in Sussex.

Rupert Toovey visiting clients Amberley, Sussex

It was my homegrown hero Grandpa who first suggested that I should consider being an actor, an auctioneer or a vicar. In response to this advice I remember replying “What’s an auctioneer?” And with that we grabbed our hats and coats and walked briskly out into a cool October afternoon. Our footsteps echoed against the old brick walls as we walked down the Morph and into Horsham’s Causeway turning right towards the Old Town Hall dodging the traffic in the Carfax. Up a twitten behind the newsagent the warm glow of the lights from a small office spilled into the courtyard and beyond a huge wooden pea green door hung on runners at the very top of the building greeted us. We swung on the personnel door which had swollen in the rain. It burst open to reveal a tall room filled with people. Above the crowd Jack Ash called the bidding “Two-twenty, twenty, twenty, at two hundred and twenty – selling” followed by the crack of the gavel on the old oak Rostrum. The ritual of the auction continued at pace as the porters cried “Showing here sir!” before each lot. Wonderful people, the theatre of the sale day and a room filled with beautiful things I was captivated, and I still am.

Dora Carrington at Pallant House

Dora Carrington – Lytton Strachey Reading, oil, c.1916 © National Portrait Gallery London

The winter season of exhibitions has just opened at Pallant House Gallery with a reassessment of the life and art of Dora Carrington.

Dora Carrington liked to call herself Carrington. She thought ‘Dora’ was vulgar and sentimental. A bohemian, Carrington found herself at the heart of a passionate group of artists, writers and friends from the Bloomsbury Group. Her lovers, who included men and women, and friends profoundly influenced her work. Much of the work of this gifted female artist is on a domestic scale which is refreshing. Travel, love, relationships, sexuality and the importance of place are recurring themes. Carrington’s work was never critically acclaimed during her lifetime and the paintings form a very intimate, personal expression and observation of her life.

Dora Carrington – Farm at Watendlath, oil, c.1921 © Tate

Carrington fell in love with the homosexual writer Lytton Strachey in 1915 and a year later she painted an intimate portrait of him reclining and reading. Her love for him is apparent in the intimacy with which she observes his long slender fingers, face and soft reddish beard. Strachey and Carrington first set up home together at Tidmarsh Mill near Pangbourne in 1917. There Ralph Partridge fell in love with Carrington and attracted the attentions of Strachey. Ralph and Carrington were married in 1921, not so much for love but to preserve the ménage à trois with Strachey. On the day she agreed to marry Partridge she wrote movingly to Strachey ‘I cried last night Lytton, whilst he slept by my side sleeping happily – I cried to think of a savage cynical fate which had made it impossible for my love ever to be used by you…’. It was on holiday with Ralph Partridge in Cumbria in 1921 that Carrington began her affair with Ralph’s friend Gerald Brenan. The landscape, Farm at Watendlath, seems to capture the emotional turmoil of their relationships. The farm where they all stayed is painted beneath the brooding Cumbrian hills. The description in Virginia Woolf’s diary of the tensions in Carrington’s life are apparent throughout this show. Woolf would write how likeable, impulsive and self-conscious Carrington was ‘…eager to please, conciliatory, restless, and active…’. The exhibition leaves you with a sense that although Carrington embraced the freedoms and spirit of a bohemian life it was costly to her. Her love for Lytton Strachey could not be fulfilled. She nursed him and heartbroken after his death she committed suicide.

Dora Carrington at Pallant House is an exhibition filled with beauty, joy and sorrow. An intimate portrayal of Carrington’s life expressed through her art and letters.