A love of history is a passion that flames within the heart of Jill Holst. So all consuming has it been during her life that, in one 12-month period, she managed to purchase one of Australia’s oldest businesses, 'Jarman The Picture Framer', and the historic 1895 Victorian home 'Belmont', at 21 Ebden Street, in the bayside suburb of Brighton where the famous colonial artist J. H. Sheltema once held classes.
The year was 1988 and she happily raised two children at her Brighton home while running the lucrative Hawthorn-based gallery with business partner Rod Eastgate.
Now that her two offspring have grown up, she has sold 'Belmont' to move to a smaller contemporary home where her substantial traditional art collection cannot be accommodated.
For Jill Holst it is the end of an era, although her love of all things traditional will be maintained through the continued operation of the business, recognised as the framers for Melbourne's leading galleries and auction houses.
An art teacher in England, in 1982 she migrated to Australia where she teamed up with art and antiques dealer Brian Collie to establish the Melbourne Art Exchange. Once they went their separate ways, her partnership with Rod Eastgate at Jarman The Picture Framer flourished.
More than 80 paintings will be offered at the auction and feature such well-known colonial names as William Rubery Bennett, Janet Cumbrae-Stewart, James Alfred Turner, Sir Arthur Streeton and J.M.W. Tristram.
The painting by Bennett, entitled Kangaroo Valley, (Lot 330) was featured on the front cover of his book The Art of Rubery Bennett, published in 1956 while Cumbrae-Stewart’s Young Girl by a Fire (Lot 336) was exhibited in 2003 at the Melbourne Peninsula Regional Gallery as part of a retrospective to the artist.
Arthur Streeton’s Our Untidy Bush (Lot 316) was once owned by Sir Lionel Lindsay, a former curator at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Jill’s mother, Mrs Jeanne Grenville, also has several outstanding Regency furniture items purchased during the 1960s and 1970s featured in the sale.
These include a mahogany semi-circular work table (Lot 334) exhibited in 1975 at the Edinburgh show, an 18th century French Louis XV Vernis Martin painted bracket clock (Lot 320) made by Toussaint Paris (1743-1804) and a pedestal chess board complete with ivory figures.
