The new book “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” includes portraits of Sir George Fermor and wife Dame Mary Curzon auctioned by Sotheby’s from the Easton Neston estate sale. Or are they a £78,000 fraud?
(Edited from the ArtDaily and The Guardian articles with additional sources.)
In May 2005, Sotheby’s announced the auction sale of collected works from Easton Neston on behalf of the Lord and Lady Hesketh and the Trustees of Frederick Fermor-Hesketh, 2nd Baron Hesketh. The sale was held at Easton Neston, near Towcester, over three days, from Tuesday, 17 May to Thursday, 19 May, with viewing at the house days prior from Thursday, 12 May to Monday, 16 May.
Additionally, the 3,319-acre estate, its private racecourse, and the entire estate village of Hulcote – was for sale.
House and Estate Village
Easton Neston has been the seat of the Fermor-Hesketh family since 1535 with its purchase by Richard Fermor (d. 1552), grocer and merchant who made a large fortune trading with Flanders and Italy. He lived there in great style until his estates were forfeited in 1540. However, King Henry VIII relented at the end of his life, and the Fermors once again occupied Easton Neston.
The estate passed to Richard’s eldest son, Sir John Fermor, and then to his eldest son, George Fermor. In September 1585, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, set off to the Low Countries with a substantial army to fight the Spaniards. Fermor was part of this expedition and was knighted by Leicester in 1586. On 27 June 1603, Sir George and his wife Mary Curzon entertained James I and Anne of Denmark on their way south from Scotland to assume the Crown of England. There was an enormous gathering and it was reported that the countryside could “scarse lodge the infinit companie of lords and ladies and other people.” Ben Jonson composed a special poetical entertainment for the occasions. The new King knighted a number of those gathered at Easton Neston, including Sir George’s eldest son Hatton.
The present house is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful country houses in England. Described in William Camden’s Britannia (1586) as a “beautiful seat,” the original house there was an amalgam of Tudor pitched roofs, gables, arched doorways and mullioned windows. This same house was home to six generations until, in the 1690s, Sir William Fermor (1648-1711) decided to consult Sir Christopher Wren (his cousin by marriage) for advice on building a new house. Wren’s office designed two wings for a new house (one of which no longer exists) and directed Sir William to his highly talented colleague Nicholas Hawksmoor around 1700.
Large 500-Year Fine Art Collection
The large collection up for auction consisted of over 1500 items to include fine English and French furniture, old master and British paintings, tapestries, silver, books, chinese cloisonné, Japanese lacquer work, and European porcelain and glass representing centuries of patronage and collecting at the highest level.
“The collection of works of art at Easton Neston is one of the most significant to have been put together by a British family over the last five hundred years. The house is full of rare and beautiful objects that reflect the changing tastes and fortunes of nearly 20 generations of the Fermor-Hesketh family, and Sotheby’s is extremely honoured to have been chosen to conduct such an historic sale.”
Henry Wyndham, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe
The collection also contains an impressive collection of Old Master Paintings. Largely amassed during the 18th and 19th centuries, these include works by Jan van Goyen, Joseph van Bredael, Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot, and Pieter de Bloot, as well as an interesting group of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish still-life paintings. Alongside is a splendid array of English portraits and a large group of family portraits by Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey Kneller.
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Later works include the full-length portrait of the Countess of Pomfret (est: £60,000-£80,000) by Sir Joshua Reynolds and an unpublished portrait of King George III attributed to John Shackleton, possibly presented to the 2nd Earl of Pomfret by the King himself. Further to the portraits, the sale will include a number of particularly good bird paintings by artists such as Peter Casteels.
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Among the paintings for sale are fine portraits of Sir George Fermor (d. 1612) and his wife Mary Curzon (d. 1628), both oil on panel measuring 264 by 140cm. (104 by 55in.) painted by (or attributed to) Robert Peake the Elder and extensively inscribed.
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Sr: Geo: Farmor of Easton Neston in ye County of Northampton K:t / son & Heir of S:r Iohn Farmor K:t of ye Bath by Matilda his Wife, One of ye / Daughters of Nich: Vaux Bar:t of Harowden by Anne his 2d wife Daugh / Heirefs of The: Greene of Greenes = Norton in ye County of Northampton Efq / And Grandfon of Rich: Farmor Efq who purchace’d ye Mannors of Eafton = Nef: / = ton and: by Ann his Wife Daughter & Heirefs of S:r Will:m Browne Knight / This S:r George spent his Youth in ye Neitherlands Fighting under ye Great / Captain William Prince of Orange ~ then Marrying lived w:th great Splen=/=der ~ Hofpitality at his Seat of Eafton where he had ye Honour to enter=/=tain King Iames ye 1:t and his Queen ye 1:t time they ever met in England. / Aet:s Ad:ri 1597
Controversy with Portrait of Sir George Fermor
The staggering array of treasures sold for a total of £8.7m. But a year later, there arose some additional controversy with the portrait of Sir George Fermor.
First, the head of British paintings at Sotheby’s, David Moore Gwyn, misdated the works when they were put into the auction, even though other experts claim to have seen “at first glance” that they were pastiches.
Art dealer Christopher Foley, one of many interested buyers and a specialist in 16th and 17th-century English paintings, visited before the sale.
“I viewed the pictures at Easton Neston carefully on behalf of the National Trust. I bought back on their behalf a number of pictures there which had formerly been in a Hesketh house in Lancashire and which is now National Trust. Both I and the trust’s art specialist dismissed the two [Fermor] portraits as wildly out of period at first glance. The painting technique was not remotely correct, the panels were of the wrong type of wood, the compositions of a style at odds with a dating to the late 16th century. They were obviously fanciful. I remember remarking to two other dealers at the time when standing in front of them that the cataloguing seemed absurdly optimistic.”
In the words of one respected dealer, “complete tat and worth a few grand at best as decoration.”
The general view is that the paintings were produced at some time in the 18th century, probably at the behest of a later Fermor who wished to have some grand-looking family portraits to give his pedigree a bit of class. “About as valid, chronologically, as getting Damien Hirst to paint the Duke of Wellington,” according to one dealer.
The works’ estimate at the time of the sale was £100,000-£150,000. But such were the doubts among specialist dealers that the buyer, fashion designer Jasper Conran, paid £78,000, thought to be the reserve price.
The paintings needed conservation work and the restorer began to doubt the pictures’ authenticity. The paintings were sent to Ian Tyers, a leading practitioner in the field of dendrochronology, a technique which can date with precision when a tree was felled by analyzing rings in a piece of wood.
“We were asked to look at the wooden panels on which these works were painted, which is something we are asked to do not uncommonly to verify what they are. In this case, however, our research unverified what they were. Our findings demonstrated clearly that they were not what they were sold as. The panels are in fact early 18th century – not, in other words, what they were thought to be. They were sold as being by followers of Peake, dated to around 1580 or 1590. The trees from which the panel were made were still growing then. My sense is that many people in the trade knew what they were all along.”
Return to Sale
Conran returned to Sotheby’s and after his money was reimbursed, the paintings quietly reappeared in another Sotheby’s sale. There is no reference in the illustrated catalog that these are known to be 18th century, with an arguably, misleading description of “manner of Robert Peake the Elder c1551-1619″ arranged among earlier Elizabethan and Jacobean works… rather than chronologically with the 18th century paintings.
The portraits were to come under the hammer again on November 23, with an estimate of £40,000-£60,000. Mr. Foley believes that an estimate of £10,000 gives a more reasonable indication of their value.
“to call them ‘magnificent’, as they do in the new catalogue is, well, completely over the top – and the new estimate of £40-£60,000 seems, shall we say, rather enthusiastic for a pair of 18th century pastiches in very fragile condition.”
Challenged on the description of the works, Gwyn said that “in the manner of” gave a clear indication of the works’ date: “If you look it up in the glossary you will see that it is our way of saying ‘painted at a later date’.”
Asked about the apparent failure of the catalog to make clear that the works are now the property of Sotheby’s, Gwyn pointed out that a triangle-shaped symbol in the paintings’ catalogue entry signified “property of Sotheby’s” – again, a definition available by reference to a glossary.
Asked about the omission of the real date of the works, he said:
“This is our normal format. It has been like this for 30 years. To anyone who asks me, I say they are 18th century. We are not intending to deceive in any way. I am happy to put up a note next to the painting [in the auction house] saying they are 18th century. I agree that maybe some people won’t know what ‘in the manner of’ means.”
As for the estimate, he said: “Well, I don’t know: we’ll have to see. Estimates are only estimates, and they come from one’s experience.”
“We’re not perfect,” Gwyn told the Guardian. “We do our best. I thought they were of the period.”
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” a 790-page biographical history of the Fermors from 1420 to 1685. Another book “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh,” follows the family immigration from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky.
