| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-670 | |
| Auction House | Phillips (Harry) -- from catalog: Mr. H. Phillips | | Sale Location | No.73 New Bond Street, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | from catalog: Charles Offley, Esq. | | Lugt Number | 7581 | | No. of Painting Lots | 60 | | Notes | The present sale is uniquely documented in contemporary sources, notably the Diary of Joseph Farington, who was a close friend and confidant of the seller, Charles Offley. Offley had decided to consign his collection to Harry Phillips to sell, and on May 5 Farington describes a visit to Offley's home during which he varnished the pictures in preparation for the auction a week later. The two men set the prices, including those for five pictures painted by Farington himself. Offley discussed some of his concerns with Farington and mentioned that Phillips had promised to issue 350 copies of the catalogue. By May 9 the pictures had been delivered to the auctioneer and on the following day Farington and Offley rearranged the hanging in the auctioneer's rooms. Subsequently, they withdrew to the Blenheim Coffee House where they marked a copy of the catalogue with the prices up to which Offley's "bidders" were to go, in effect setting the reserves. (On May 12 Farington identifies Hastings Elwin "and another person" as those employed by Offley to bid his pictures past the reserves.) Farington also marked another copy with these amounts and a few notes on those pictures painted by himself. (That catalogue is the copy now at WCL.) The sale on the twelfth is supposed to have been well attended, and Farington emphasizes that the pictures "which were not bought in, on the whole sold well." Unfortunately we do not know which lots were bought in. The prices recorded by the dealer John Smith in his copy of the catalogue (now at RKDH) are impressive, and by comparing them to the reserves marked in Farington's catalogue, one can deduce a few of the lots that certainly must have been sold. But this method is deceptive since Offley's representatives evidently went beyond the reserves in some instances. We know, for example, that Offley's minimum figure for his prized possession, a landscape by Hobbema, the last lot in the sale, was 445 guineas, for which Smith records a final bid of 462 guineas. Farington tells us, however, that the "real bidding" went to just 280 guineas and that the picture failed to sell. (Further entries in his diary record an attempt by Farington to clean the Hobbema in order to make it more presentable for private sale at a later time. Eventually it was sold to Michael Zachary and is now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.) It is possible that very few lots managed to find buyers since most of the prices recorded by Smith are only slightly above the reserves. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | RKDH [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. by the dealer John Smith with all prices excepting those for lots 1-7. He has also written the name "Zachary" by lot 59, but this was evidently a subsequent owner and not the buyer at this sale.
WCL [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. with prices for lots 25-59, but an inscription on the front of the catalogue adds that these figures had been "fixed by C Offley at the Blenheim Coffee House May 11, 1809," and so they are reserves and not the prices actually realized. The catalogue belonged to Jos. Farington, and it is apparently he who has annotated a number of lots containing paintings by himself, giving the dates they were painted and first exhibited.
Redford [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Gives the buyers of lots 57 and 58, but since he gives the wrong seller for the same lots, it is uncertain the buyers are correct.
CIL [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot.
VAL I Not annot.
VAL II Not annot. | | Photocopies | BIB and NGL (both of CIL) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | |
|
|