Treasures from a Lower Saxony private collection
On 16 November, the first part of a highly significant private collection from Lower Saxony will be auctioned off as part of the arts and crafts auction. Most of the approximately 200 objects from the fields of ivory, silver and porcelain, some of them museum objects, were acquired in London and Geneva in the 1970s and 1980s and have since been owned by the family. A collection of this quality has probably not been offered on the German market for decades. Estimates range from € 3,000 to € 250,000.
On 16 November, the silver and ivory objects, including a very important 17th century southern German Hercules sculpture, formerly owned by the Earls of Roseberry, which was auctioned at Sotheby's in London in 1978 as part of the Mentmore auctions ( lot 504, 150/250,000 euros), will begin.
The silver offer is led by a large Charles II Tazza, London 1671, probably from the workshop of master William Fowle (lot 506, € 40/50,000). A rare Charles II wall chandelier (London, Robert Smythier, c. 1670) was formerly in the possession of the English royal family and was sold in 1808 with parts of the other silverware to raise the cost of the new Court Silver of the Kensington Palace (lot 503, € 15/20,000).
Historism collectors will be interested in the large Ascot Cup of the Queen's Vase Race in May 1883 (lot 566, € 20/25,000). Also from the 19th century is a wide selection of ivory lidded pumps, some with, some without silver mounting, a large English ivory group of the four seasons and an exceptional signed ivory lidded pump with deer in the forest of the Odenwald ivory carver Friedrich Hartmann, Michelstadt 1857 (lot 564, € 20/30,000).
This extraordinary, important collection will be presented in a special catalogue and auctioned in two lots - Part I with 85 works of art in Cologne and Part II with important, mostly Berlin porcelains, next spring in our Berlin House.