Living with a Collector

Living with a focused collector must be fascinating, but restricting. Living with a less disciplined collector is exhausting, but far more exciting.

For 40 years I shared a house and a life with someone who loved chairs and paintings and porcelain and books as well as children’s crutches and clowns’ shoes and leather wallets (that somehow all belonged to Charles II) and dozens of saris bought on a beach in Goa and a hippopotamus skull bought in Kenya (and exported legally) and bolts of materials bought at every visit to a French market and huge linen napkins from country house sales and printed cotton bedspreads from Jaipur (dozens of them) and marble furniture from Udaipur and tea services and dinner services and lace handkerchiefs that belonged to Victorian princesses and ivory-handled fly whisks and – the list goes on and on. 

Philip had the eye and the inquisitiveness and the fun and the knowledge to collect the quirky and the humble as well as the grand. He never seemed to have the money to buy the very best so the fabulous Delft vase often had a crack in it - but that could always be hidden. A set of chairs that sold at auction for £110,000 many years ago could – and were – copied meticulously by the magician chairmaker, Philip Boorman. When a set of Thomas Fry mezzotints that hung up the staircase had to go, they were simply photocopied and put back into immaculately remade frames. Contemporary paintings and ceramics and silver made by friends were all hugely loved and sat happily with Chinese lacquer furniture and 18th century bronzes and Afghan rugs.

"If anyone can have half the fun that he had in collecting and that I had in watching a life-enhancing genius at work, then both of us will be enormously pleased."

Philip’s taste wasn’t unique, but it was very clever and not at all undisciplined. It was liveable with, it was well put together, it was affordable, and it was generously shared. He knew how to place everything on a tabletop or in a room. He knew that a fireplace he found in a skip in Wandsworth would be perfect in our study but at the same time knew that a fireplace made by John Carr of York that he found in Harrogate would be perfect in our dining room. 

Philip died in August 2021 and it is now time to let some of his hugely loved treasures go. If anyone can have half the fun that he had in collecting and half the fun that I had in watching a life-enhancing genius at work, then both of us will be enormously pleased.

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Auction Details

Wednesday 9 April, 10.30am BST
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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VIEWING:

• Viewing in London (highlights): 16-17 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5LU
  • Tuesday 25 March: 10am-4pm
  • Wednesday 26 March: 10am-4pm
  • Thursday 27 March: 10am-4pm
  • Friday 28 March: 10am-4pm
• Viewing in Newbury (full sale): Donnington Priory, RG14 2JE
  • Sunday 6 April: 10am-3pm
  • Monday 7 April: 10am-4pm
  • Tuesday 8 April: 10am-4pm
• Dreweatts Remote Viewing Service | Available from Sunday 6 April