SKINFLINT'S CITY DIARY Celebration Day
Sotheby's had an unremarkable sale of Modern British Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture on 7 April. I was glad to see the name of Horsman, M., against the purchase of a Philip Wilson Steer watercolour at £160, a Sir Russell Drysdale pen and sepia ink at £260 and a William Dobbell pen, indian ink and wash for £90. Surely this is Malcolm Horsman of Ralli Bros who has, I feel sure, spent some of his well-deserved profit on a number of the Ralli shares in the recent £5 million private placing of the shares through the stock market a fortnight ago.
This particular Sotheby sale seems to haiie been a time for celebration. The only item I coveted (in the catalogue at least) was a Barbara Hepworth sculpture, Two forms in bronze, an egg-shaped sphere divided in two pieces. It was bought by a Mrs Victor Sandelson whose' good-humoured stock- broker husband put together a private syn- dicate which with his cousin Mr Harold Lever bought £10 million worth of the property that Sir Charles Hardie decided Metropolitan Estate and Property should relinquish in a much commented-on deal in March. The Barbara Hepworth was known affectionately in the trade as the 'danger' but the £950 it cost Mrs Sandelson will certainly not prove to be that. Nor will the property bought from Sir Charles Hardie.
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