The dispersal of the great Holford collections at Dorchester Clouse
and Westonbirt has begun this week. On Tuesday Messrs. Sotheby sold the superb mediaeval miniatures which were collected by R. S. Holford—the patron of Alfred Stevens —early in the reign of Queen Victoria, when such things could be bought fairly cheap. Seldom, indeed, does one see in the sale-room or anywhere else such a masterly example of fourteenth-century Florentine illumination as the Benedict enthroned in white by Jacopo di Cione, brother of Orcagna, which was bought by Messrs. Duveen for £1,120. A leaf from an English Psalter, covered on both sides with pictures by an artist working at Bury St. Edmunds in the reign of Henry the Second, was another remarkable item, which went to Messrs. Quaritch for 11,750 ; three other leaves from the same Psalter exist in our national collections and in New York. The old Italian masters are being sold at Christie's after this journal goes to press. As Messrs. Duveen have just bought for £500,000 the early Italian pictures collected by Mr. R. H. Benson, the late Sir George Holford's brother-in-law, the Holford sale should be exciting.
CONNOISSEUR.
Previous page
