On Thursday 22 November, Clevedon Salerooms is hosting an ‘Antique & Quality Furnishings and Collectibles’ auction. Included in the sale is a fascinating mix of goods, from sculptures and garden accessories to artworks, jewellery and antique furniture, including mirrors, cabinets, dressers and tables.
We’ve compiled a few highlights to give you a taste.
This Portrait of Miss Germain Zoé Jeanne Marie Robyns (1894-1988) aged 21 was executed by Belgian artist Fernand Toussaint (1873-1956) and bears the Robyns family’s coat of arms – a shield comprising three ruby-set gold rings – to the top left of the canvas, which comes in an original gilt gesso frame.
The portrait was a 21st birthday gift to to Germain Zoé Jeanne Marie Robyns, born and raised in Brussels, from her parents. The dress worn by Miss Robyns was created specifically for the sitting at the request of Toussaint, who provided a coloured drawing to his design prior to the sitting so that the picture would not date too quickly.
The Robyns family knew Toussaint socially, and Miss Robyns played tennis with the artist. However, the most celebrated of the Robyns lineage is the eccentric Martin Jean Ghislain Dominique Robyns (1777-1852), who features in several 19th-century literary works, including Alexandre Dumas’ My Memoirs, Frances Trollope’s Belgium and Western Germany in 1833, and Charles Dickens’ Household Words, Volume 12.
Dickens wrote of his visit to the Robyns’ large Brussels property:
“M. Robyns is a rich man, a millionaire, whose passion and pursuit it has been, from youth upwards, to collect the most incongruous articles and curiosities of every possible description and kind…. I shall but allude, slightly, to what I beheld in a hasty survey, my object being solely to draw the attention of travellers to a place very well worth the trouble of visiting”.
This colonial house is in fact a rare 19th-century Anglo-Indian Vizagapatam ivory sewing box . The hinged cover has an oval reserve with the initial ‘M’ and opens to reveal a fitted interior with covered and other partitions. It measures 19.25 cm in width.
This pair of German Kriegsmarine binoculars by Carl Zeiss hails from World War II. They are painted grey and come with original rubber mounts and Benutzer lens cover.
Finally, this single stone brilliant-cut diamond ring measures approx. 8.5 mm in diameter, weighing approx. 2.03 carats, size O, 3.8 g gross. A perfect gift for Christmas?
You can discover all lots – comprising more than 750 items – from Clevedon Salerooms directly on Barnebys.
