A day of disappointment!
March 30 2017
Picture: Sotheby's
I think there should be a medical term to describe the frustration of underbidding something at auction. Has anyone got any ideas? 'I'm suffering from gavel grief'?
I suppose feelings of excitement and hope are a key part of the auction process - from the time you see something in the catalogue, determine that you want it, think about whether you can afford it, dare to dream you might get it - but still the sense of disappointment when someone beats you to it can be more than annoying. I'm aware there are more important things to worry about in the world...
On Tuesday Sotheby's held that rare thing these days; a proper, quality house sale, packed full of items that had never before been on the market. One of them wasa small inch-high gold jewel of the Order of the Thistle (above), the pre-eminent Scottish chivalric order. It showed St Andrew on his cross. The family legend (from the Forbes's of Pitsligo) was that this had belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie, and had been given to the 4th Baron Forbes after the Battle of Culloden. The estimate was £400-£600!
So you can imagine the excitement this caused a Jacobite anorak like me, not least because Bonnie Prince Charlie has actually (though of course indirectly) changed my life*. I also thought the family legend behind the jewel was quite convincing; the story had been first recorded in 1804, and the figure of St Andrew was evidently made in a southern European fashion. James III & VIII also created very few 'Jacobite' knights of the Thistle, so there few other contenders to have owned such a thing. And we know also that Charles owned a gold jewel like this, for we see it in his portrait by Antonio David (below, and zoom in here).
Alas, it was not to be. The jewel made £6,875. In the same sale was a portrait by Ramsay of Clementina Walkinshaw, Charles' mistress and the mother of his daughter, the Duchess of Albany. That made £37,500.
And talking of mistresses, my hopes were also dashed on a portrait of Van Dyck's mistress, Margaret Lemon (above). Regular readers will know that Van Dyck is another of my slight obsessions. Lemon was supposedly so jealous of his female sitters that she once tried to bite his thumb off, so he could no longer paint. The portrait was a good early copy of Van Dyck's original in the Royal Collection, and made £11,875.
* I live in Edinburgh, after finding this.
