It was Mr Provenance's moment of glory which stood out as buyers celebrated Mr. Stilwell AM's meticulous research and librarianship. Stillwell was Allport Librarian at the State Library of Tasmania in the 1980s and 90s and the ultimate authority on Tasmania. They paid $91,500 paid for an oil painting (Lot 20 ) by Florence Williams of a native bird showing Mount Wellington, Hobart in the background (it carried an estimate of only $6,000-$10,000) and $88,450 for a drawing by Edward Burne-Jones which was estimated at only $30,000-$50,000.
Both went to telephone bidders with different bidders' numbers, the first to an unnamed institution and the second to the UK trade. Such was Stilwell's reputation that both had an easier passage than they might otherwise, given the disdain for Victoriana and suspicion of Old Masters which is endemic in Australia.
But items with a more personal connection, such as signed presentation copies of books and his own secretaire bookcase also rallied in the bidding. The secretaire bookcase, of Tasmanian cedar, (lot 21) realised $20,740 against a pre-auction estimate of $3,000-$4,000 based on what it was worth as a piece of Australiana.
Stilwell's inner CBD house on an "L" shaped block with Victorian outhouses and a garden plot was a little bit of old Tasmania which pitifully could not be preserved in itself as a museum. The house was filled with a comprehensive library of useful modern as well as rare “antique” Tasmanian books, bric a brac, and assorted Victoriana most which was vigorously pursued over four and a half hours by a room in which 150 chairs had been put out and an additional 150 people were happy to stand. The Internet was also busy while the telephone took many other lots, especially the leading ones.
Put up a maypole in a village and everyone will come out. Old Tasmanian family members came out for the man who had helped define Tasmania – curiously at a time that Tasmania is receiving a new wave of arts professional retirees from the mainland. Former director of the NGA, Ron Radford has bought a house in South Hobart. Cultural historian John Jones has alos purchased in Hobart. After more than three years in Hobart, curator Scott Carlin has bought Stilwell's house.
Stilwell is believed to have paid around $1000 for the Florence Williams, an oil on canvas 59.8 x 45.2cm. but would have winced to hear it described as a good investment. Untrue to his character, it is rather a gaudy piece of painting. Illustrated in Joan Kerr's Dictionary of (19th century) Australian Artists, the Williams had come through Hobart art dealer Nevin Hurst from the sale of the Michael Sharland collection in 1987. Williams (British / Australia 1833 – 1915) was born in the UK and exhibited at the Royal Academy. Williams moved to Australia in 1863 and lived in New Town, Tasmania from 1873 – 1875.
Sharland (Tasmanian 1899 – 1987) wrote as “Peregrine” for the Sydney Morning Herald and Hobart Mercury. Sharland was a passionate environmentalist for the built and natural environment, author and ornithologist. His photographs are in the Australian Museum but it is unlikely that the museum has secured the oil on canvass given the current “rationalisation.” The only institution which has been vigorously buying 19th century Victorian paintings of late has been the Art Gallery of NSW – excluding the NGA's purchase of the Roberts Portrait of Louis Abrahams revealed in a check list of its coming exhibition of the artist. Williams had a link with the Blue Mountains.
The small pencil drawing by Burne-Jones was a portrait of Portrait of Laura Lyttelton, née Tennant and it came with the provenance of Geoffrey Holt Stillwell’s, Magdalen College Oxford rooms, where he studied from the 1880s. Laura was the daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, a highly successful industrialist who had made a fortune through interests in railways and gold mines, and later became a MP for Glasgow.
One disappointment was the vastly overvalued (estimates $8,000 - $10,000) Thomas Bock. (1790 – 1855) invitation card to the opening of Ancanthe (Lady Franklin’s Museum) on March 16th 1842. Bidding on the 8 cm by 10cm went to $6000 at which price it was sold.
Reborn Victoriana buffs did not enthuse about the old pewter but Victoriana frequently glowed, almost literally, as when a mother of pearl reverse painting estimated to make $400 - $800 sold for $2928. The sale was a stunning 237.7 per cent by value with 98 per cent of the lots sold.
The Allport Library itself was a bidder but still tallying its successes as we went to press. A triptych of geese by Lily Allport (1860-1949) of the family which originated the collection would have been a natural target but at $11,590 shot way beyond the estimates of $5000 to $8000 and it is the season when some people still get stuck into geese.
The books were scoffed down, some selling in shelves with Peter Arnold, who was said to be mentioned in Stilwell's will “to be consulted” not making much of a stir after all. Pleasant surprises like Pugin's "Contrasts ...or a parallel between the Noble Edifices of the Middle Ages, and, corresponding buildings of the present day; showing The Present Decay of Taste 1841" at $976 against an estimate of $200 - $250 punctuated the sale.
Robertson and Craig's "Early Houses of Northern Tasmania - An Historical and Architectural Survey" [Georgian House, Melbourne, 1964] in 2 volumes. Limited edition [#198] signed by the authors and endorsed "To Geoffrey Stilwell with many thanks for his great help." sold for $915 against an estimate of $200 - $300
The Stilwells were an extended an interesting family as can be gleaned from a journal by nurse Alice Stilwell, estimated at $100 - $200 which sold for $2440.
Hardy Wilson's "Old Colonial Architecture in New South Wales and Tasmania" [Sydney, 1924] sold for $1037 against an estimate of $500 - $750 reputedly to a scholar who has completed a doctorate on the architect.
The two lots withdrawn from other auctions were taken out to give time for them to be proved up. Sadly the time was limited for a work catalogued as a Chen Yifei's Painting, Evening Feast, 1994 an oil on canvas.
The 75 by 99 cm oil on canvas which according to the catalogue “bears the artist's seal, date and title in Chinese in verso” was expected to make $150,000 to $250,000 and it was for auction by Mossgreen on November 16 leading the company's Spring Auction Series. The company's Chinese paintings department told the Australian Art Sales Digest that the paperwork for the cataloguing “purchased directly from the artist in Hong Kong in 1984” was being sought.
The image was one of the most striking that a catalogue cover was applied but the image was already familiar to buyers as a masterwork of which it appeared to be a copy.
It was the lead art work in a Christie's Asian Contemporary Art and Chinese 20th Century Art Evening Sale and broke a new auction record, selling at HK$61.1 million (US$7.9 million).
The anxiety may have been that the Mossgreen lot was a copy. There was no other provenance on the work published in the catalogue other than the claim about its purchase.
Chen who died in 2005 was one of China's most renowned artists. His big Mao Zedong portraits and depiction of grand heroic events of the modern Chinese nation made his work extremely well sought after.
The orchestral piece represented a quantum leap from his breakaway Red Flag sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong 'Sotheby's Hong Kong 40th Anniversary Evening Sale' in 2013 at $HK10,270,146.
The withdrawn offering has been deleted from the online records although the image went out in printed version of the catalogue.
Bonhams' Australia's Mark Fraser said the withdrawal of Nerli's The Beach at Sandringham (c. 1890) was to further explore the provenance. The oil on canvas signed lower left, 62.5 x 75 cm which was estimated to make $150,000-200,000 and sold for $187,000 (IBP) when last offered at Leonard Joel's Australian British, New Zealand & European Historical and Contemporary Paintings in Melbourne, 10 April 1990 as lot no. 90.
It was noted then that "A small version of this painting is in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of NSW." and “Reference: Charles Conder by Ursula Hoff Lansdowne Press Pty Ltd 1972.”
Coincidentally the author of the very revealing book on some of the world's great tribal art collectors Provenance: Twelve Collectors of Ethnographic Art in England 1760 - 1990, Hermione Waterfield has become a friend of Tasmania with a regular summer visit there.
