The 256 lots going under the hammer in the fine art sale on May 31, will be followed by 1411 antique and decorative arts lots on June 7, 8 and 20, with a total sale value in this auction series of $3.25 million to $4.56 million.
The early sessions in this largest Mossgreen auction so far, will be held from 5pm on Monday June 7 and from 6pm Tuesday June 8 at 310 Toorak Road, South Yarra and will feature fine furniture and furnishings from a private Sydney collection, Australian and international art, and the contents of the former Grimwade family home Miegunyah in Toorak, which sold recently for more than $20 million.
The private Sydney collection includes a sofa table by Thomas Chippendale the Younger (lot 258) and a George I bureau cabinet (lot 260), while Miegunyah features Penleigh Boyd’s Bushland 1920 (lot 488), and an unusual 19th century Australian folk art pine and native timber rocking chair and an 1870s two-section Australian bookcase from Lord Alistair McAlpine’s collection (lots 489 and 490).
Another Monday auction highlight is the estate of Nigel Reed, a Sydney identity who died recently. An avid and eccentric collector and the son of Nigel (Chief Justice of Nigeria), his estate includes Nigerian item such as wild cat skins, crocodile cases and feather headdresses (lots 722, 726 and 733).
The Tuesday June 8 auction is notable for an Adelaide private collection formed 30-50 years ago and featuring fine 18th century English furniture, silver, glass and porcelain and a good Asian art collection from two sources.
One is by former Sydney dealer Andrew Stuart Robertson now living in London and bought mainly from Christies, and the other from the late L. Roberts who between 1915 and 1955 collected mainly Chinese art.
The site of the June 20 Mossgreen auction, 'Werrington House', was completed in 1832 and at the time situated on 516 hectares, the house was built by Englishman Robert Copland Lethbridge who had married Mary, youngest daughter of New South Wales Governor Philip King (1800-1806), six years earlier and migrated to the colony.
Today the house at 108 Ruby Street, which remained in the Lethbridge family until purchased in 1979 by the late Emeritus Professor Dr Gero von Wilpert, is surrounded by the red brick suburbia of outer western Sydney but also is notable for the fact that Sir Henry Parkes (of Federation fame) and his wife once lived and farmed there.
The von Wilpert collection of 18th and 19th century French Louis XV and Louis XVI antiques and European art, sets off the spacious Georgian interior to perfection.
The large rooms also accommodate his vast library of some 40,000 books on art, architecture, antiques and literature – largely necessary because he was an established author of many works about German authors and literature and its field of influence in Europe. Many of the books are rare and/or first editions, and out of print.
Mossgreen will auction the libraries in three lots giving collectors the opportunity to acquire well established collections of quality books in English, German, French and Italian.
The sale also contains many fine antique furniture pieces, including a bronze mounted parquetry marble topped side cabinet, and is being held because Professor von Wilpert’s widow is planning a move to smaller premises.