798 District Blog

Two oil on canvas paintings by the official artist of the Coronation of Elizabeth II, Terence Cuneo (1907-1996), commissioned by the Ford Motor Company in 1947, are to be sold at Bonhams’ sale of Important Motor Cars and Fine Automobilia on 6 December. This year the annual end of year sale will take place at a new venue – Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands in Surrey.

The paintings are part of a series of six, which were commissioned to depict Ford’s car, truck, van and tractor production at the company’s Dagenham plant. Entitled Vehicle Inspection (February 1947) and Ford Thames Foundry (April 1947), they have attracted pre-sale estimates of £7,000 – 9,000 and £4,500 – 5,500 respectively.

During the war, the plant was a major production facility for military vehicles and Rolls-Royce aero engines, and was subsequently damaged by German bombing raids. After the war, it became the major European car production factory of the time, employing around 30,000 staff.

All six of the paintings were kept at the Ford training centre in Boreham, near Chelmsford, and in 1987 were loaned to the Terence Cuneo 80th Birthday Exhibition at the Mall Gallery in London.

Cuneo was an English painter famous for his scenes of railways, aviation, motoring, horses and military action. Brought into the public’s attention when he was appointed the official artist for the Queen’s Coronation in 1952, a bronze memorial statue of Cuneo, by Philip Jackson, today stands in Waterloo Station, London.

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When Malcolm Barber, CEO of Bonhams first caught site of what was to be his 1903 Peerless, Model F, 16HP, twin cylinder, rear entrance tonneau just over twenty years ago, he thought he had found something unusual. He found the car in Hawaii in a collection and discovered it had previously been part of the Denver Colorado Transport Museum collection, but as to who had originally owned the car and the story of its past remained a mystery.

Nearly twenty years later Malcolm received a call out of the blue from the Silver Times newspaper in Lake City, Colorado in collaboration with the Horseless Carriage Club of America who told him that his 1903 Peerless had been the Hinsdale county’s first motorcar and invited him to attend a summer tour organised by the Club. The aim being to reunite the Peerless with the family who bought it originally.

The car was shipped from London to New Jersey by container, couriered from New Jersey to Denver and then driven by Malcolm from Gunnison (west of Denver) to Lake City, a mining town 9,000ft high in the Rockies. So 108 years after its first drive, the car still made it up the steep, precarious roads to the town. Waiting for the car to arrive was the 102yr old granddaughter of the original owner, the mining engineer at the Lucky Strike mine, who had not seen the car since 1952, when the family sold it. She said she always remembered the car was astonished to see it again.

As the Peerless was a local celebrity at the time, numerous postcards taken in 1903 were sold in the local shop. Thomas Beam bought the Peerless for a pricey $2,300, they were considered one the three ‘P’s of American manufacturing: the Peerless, Packard and Pierce Arrow, the US’s best early motorcar manufacturers.

Still going strong, the Peerless, now back in the UK, will be making its 20th run from London to Brighton on November 7th. Malcolm comments: “When you have had a lifelong love affairs with cars, to own one of the great originals like this is an enormous privilege. You realise you are driving automotive history and that the car is never going to be yours, you are merely its keeper for a time. Taking it back to the scenes in which it first saw the road in the breathtaking settings of Colorado, that has to be one of the highlights of my life.”

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A double-sided painting entitled ‘King Solomon’ by Svetoslav Roerich is one of the top lots in the Russian Sale taking place in New Bond Street on 1st December. Estimated to sell for £300,000 – 400,000, this work has never been exhibited or published before and has only previously been known to a small group of specialists.

One of only two existing works from the unfinished series of paintings depicting the most important religious figures and spiritual teachers of the past, this magnificent portrait was painted in 1923 in Paris where Roerich stopped on his way to India.

Roerich’s interpretation of King Solomon, who built the first Temple of Jerusalem, is instilled with complex symbolism and is depicted as a vehicle for mystical experience: his Solomon has tasted from the chalice of his fate and sacrificed himself for the creation of the Great Temple. This symbolic interpretation was most likely suggested by the Roerich’s father, the legendary Nicholas Roerich who wrote the essay ‘Strings of Earth’ about Solomon’s desire to build a unified Temple.

Consequently, Svetoslav Roerich decided to model the portrait of King Solomon on the likeness of his father, who was indeed considered a spiritual teacher and cultural leader at the time. As a result, this interesting portrait can be seen as the personification of Nicholas Roerich as the celebrated builder of the Temple, known for his great wisdom, wealth and power.

The reverse side of the painting reveals Roerich’s talent as an illustrator. The scene of the falcon hunt is one of a series of illustrations for the edition of European Fairy Tales commissioned in France in 1923, but the series was never completed.

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LONDON.- A collection of drawings, pastels and ceramics by the French poet, filmmaker, playwright and novelist, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), brought together by the late business tycoon and founder of Gucci timepieces, Severin Wunderman (1939-2008), made a remarkable £430,000 today (23 September) at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, with 90% sold by value.

Just an hour earlier, a selection of prints, ceramics and silver by the artistic master of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, fetched a total of £220,812, with 85% sold by value.

Cocteau met Picasso in 1915 and the pair remained close friends for nearly 50 years. Their artistic relationship can be characterised by two comments: according to Arnaud, Picasso was “forever at the heart of Cocteau’s creative pantheon”, while Picasso was once heard to comment that “Cocteau is the tail of my comet.”

Highlights of the Picasso sale were two silver plates that he designed in the mid 1950s. Joueur de flute et Cavalier fetched £21,600 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000) and Dormeur sold for £19,200 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000). The highest selling ceramic was a platter entitled Tête de chèvre de profil (£12,000) and the top selling print was Le Cavalier (£6,240).

The best-seller in the Cocteau sale was Jeune Fille de Milly, 1951, which was painted at the house Cocteau bought with Jean Marais in Milly-la-Foret in 1947. It sold for £48,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £8,000 – 12,000.

Top prices were also paid for Les Gémeaux, which made £15,600 (estimate £7,000 – 10,000); Le Clown au Chapeau Rouge, which sold for £14,400 (estimate £5,000 – 7,000); and Portrait of Pablo Picasso, which made £10,800.
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LONDON.- A replica Supermarine Spitfire owned by The Royal British Legion has been sold by Bonhams for an above-estimate sum, ahead of auction. The replica plane was due to be auctioned at the Goodwood Revival sale on 17 September and had attracted a pre-sale estimate of £50,000 – 60,000.

The new owner, Michael Oliver, chairman of Europe’s largest, privately-owned, valve manufacturer, intends to house the Spitfire with his collection of cars in Cheshire. Before he takes possession, he has agreed that the full-sized aluminium replica of a MKVb Supermarine Spitfire can be used by the RAF at the Battle of Britain commemorations at York Minster on 19 September and at a graduation ceremony on 30 September at RAF Cranwell, the RAF’s training college in Lincolnshire.

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Bonhams new and innovative Pioneers of Popular Culture sale takes place on 15th August 2010 at the inaugural Goodwood Vintage Festival.

The sale celebrates all that is cool and iconic from the period 1940-1990, combining important and interesting objects from Entertainment Memorabilia, Vintage Guitars, Cars, Motorbikes, Scooters, Robot and Television Toys, Fashion Accessories, Wristwatches, Photographs, Prints, Posters and 20th Century Designer Furniture.

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LONDON.- A superb collection of Asian art, lovingly assembled over a decade by a single enthusiast while living and working in the Far East and South East Asia, is for sale at Bonhams Edinburgh on 7 July.

Among the most fascinating pieces is a painting by the internationally celebrated chinese artist Jiang Guo Fang who became a personal friend of the collector when he was living in Shanghai in the early 1990s. The painting, ‘Reclining Court Beauty’ shows a beautiful model posing pensively in the costume of the 19th century chinese court. It is from the artist’s well known ‘Forbidden City’ period and is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

Early 9th Century Burmese Pagan bronzes, stucco heads and votive items epitomise the simplicity and serenity so characteristic of South East Asian art and found elsewhere in the collection in sculptures from Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

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