This bone-inlaid and marquetry ship, made by French prisoners of the Napoleonic wars, sailed to $29,838.
STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET, U.K. – On November 9, Sworders conducted a mostly no-reserve auction, “Instinct, Scholarship and Curiosity: The Jan Finch Collection,” offering nearly 400 lots from the stock of the South Kensington dealership Finch & Co and from her own personal collection. Finch (1952-2021) specialized in “the unusual and the mysterious over the purely commercial,” according to fellow dealer Ted Few, and the lots available exhibited the exquisitely eclectic eye that saw Finch through more than four decades of business. Finch’s collection varied from taxidermy and natural wonders to ethnographic arts and ancient artifacts, and everything in between. The sale totaled $346,694.
The highest achieving lot was a French prisoner-of-war ship model of a 48-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, made circa 1820. Mounted on a galleried marquetry base and housed in its original mahogany display case, the model was inlaid with bone on its hull, masts, deck and even its miniature figurehead. The model’s provenance included information possibly linking it to prisoners at Portchester Castle in Fareham, Hampshire, which was used as a prison during the Napoleonic Wars and housed more than 7,000 French prisoners during this conflict. The ship bid to $29,838 and went to a private collector in the United States.
Second in the listings was a Western Polynesian “apa’apai” ironwood war club from the Eighteenth Century, which beat its way up to $12,078 and is now part of a private collection in Ireland. Despite or perhaps adding to its intended purpose, the club was delicately carved throughout with 15 zoomorphic and anthropomorphic glyphs. According to the Royal Museums, Greenwich, UK, these carvings “[honor and control] an object, telling a story at the same time as it serves to both shield and advertise its ‘mana’ or power.”
Another top lot was a pair of embroidered silk trousers believed to have been worn by Sir Jeffrey Hudson (1619-1682), also known as “Lord Minimus” and the “Queen’s dwarf” as a favorite of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. Hudson stood at just 19½ inches yet fought with the Royalists in the English Civil War. He fled with the queen and court to France but was expelled after killing a man during a duel. Shortly after he was captured by Barbary pirates, enduring 25 years of enforced servitude. Hudson did not return to court following the Restoration and was imprisoned for his Catholicism in England, dying about two years after his release. The trousers, a souvenir of Hudson’s better days, sold for $10,657 to a private Belgian collector.
Prices quoted with buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house, using exchange rates listed on date of sale. Sworders’ Fine Interiors auction will take place on December 6. For more information, www.sworder.co.uk.
