Dr. Lant passed away April 16, 2023
Treasures from The Lant Collection
Dr. Jeffrey Lant, Founder. Vol. 1
Photo Cover: Dr. Lant’s Red Drawing Room
Cover Design Patrice Porter
Copyright 2016
Jeffrey Lant Associates, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Contents
Preface …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
CHAPTER 1 Creme de la Creme ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
CHAPTER 2 The Naked Truth. William Etty, R.A. and me. …………………………………………………………….. 13
CHAPTER 3 Kaffee ole’ ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17
CHAPTER 4 Some Like it Hot ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 19
CHAPTER 5 “Yo, el Rey.” A portrait of King Ferdinand VII of Spain. “Cowardly, selfish, grasping,
suspicious, and vengeful”. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 22
CHAPTER 6 “They caw their lamentations in the eerie trees”. A pair of Russian ormolu and patinated-
bronze twin branch candelabra circa 1810………………………………………………………………………………… 27 CHAPTER 7 Dinner at Eight. Osenat lots 201, 202, and 203. Ou la la. ……………………………………………. 32
CHAPTER 8 The one that got away. ………………………………………………………………………………………… 35
CHAPTER 9 Chaconne a son gout …………………………………………………………………………………………… 37
CHAPTER 10 Rule, Britannia. …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 41
About the Author …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 43
SPECIAL WRITERS SECRETS CATALOG ………………………………………………………………………………………. 44
Preface
Dear friends and fellow connoisseurs. It is with the very greatest joy and happiness that I welcome you to the first volume of “Treasures from The Lant Collection”.
This may well be the most personal book ever written on art, artifacts, auctions, conservators, and the great yarns that constitute the better part of provenance. As you will see from the introduction that follows, I have been interested in arts, its attributions, conservations, and sheer beauties since I was been a boy in Illinois.
I have been privileged to visit many of the world’s great museums, where at closing time you’ll find me saying “Just one more! Let me look at just one more!” I am the most fervent of visitors.
I have dedicated this volume to my mother, Shirley de Lauing Phelps, Baroness de Barlais y de Kesoun in her own right, Crusader titles dating from the Second Crusade in the 12th century.
If it hadn’t been for her…
What I have written here is the result of constant exploration, research, gut hunches, and downright blind luck. I can honestly say I have enjoyed every moment in my quest to find not just objects of beauty, but objects of history, often fleshed out by me, for I am, after all, a history Ph.D. from Harvard.
Now dig in, for what follows will delight you. However, keep this in mind. This is Volume 1 of a series which will reach many volumes, and you must be registered with me to receive periodic notification of new items, new descriptions, new findings, and new joy. To do so, simply go to my Facebook
Group Monarchy & Royalty Forum at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/ofRoyalty
Introduction
The making of a connoisseur. Of heart, of mind, of eye.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. This is a story about high standards in an age that regularly outrages them. It is the story of painstaking care in the era of fast and slovenly. It is the story of masters and their punctilious craftsmanship… and of our age which has raised mediocrity to the apogee. It is the story of man at his best… and at his worst and the eye that tells us which is which… and how to perceive what one sees.
This is the story of excellence… of discernment… of discrimination… and of one man’s epic journey to know what is truth and beauty… and then find them in a world too harried and beset by troubles even to wonder, always making do with less, always pretending otherwise.
For this journey, made by so few amongst the unknowing many, I have chosen Elgar, Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), a man whose genius gave thrilling sound to the empire on which the sun never set. He dreamt the dreams that turned ideas in his mind into the cadences that define imperial glory to this day.
Thus, for this article I have selected his “Imperial March” (1897). Go now to any search engine. Find it… listen to it without any interruption permitted… and whilst you are listening ask what you have done lately to sharpen your standards… to know what shows the hand of a master (and what doesn’t). In short, what have you done to join the elite ranks of the crucial people, the people who have created civilization and sustain it, the people known as connoisseurs, the people who never accept anything but excellence for that is what the life worth living, worth striving for must be about.
Visit to the Huntington Library, monument to exacting standards, a pledge to oneself.
When one is born a boy of the prairies one is right to wonder where the urge to become a connoisseur, one who appreciates the very best, comes from. Why did I have this urge while every aunt and uncle, every cousin, did not? The answer, upon reflection, is this. Two women of perception and clear objective set me on my path. They were my mother, Shirley Mae Lauing, Baroness de Kesoun y de Barlais in her own right, and my grandmother, Victoria Burgess Lauing. Their insistence that my life should be dedicated to understanding the best of all times and cultures started me on my road to never ending improvement and a character which demanded and could tolerate nothing else.
When did these adamant ladies start? I cannot say for certain, for though like Sir Winston Churchill I was present at the event I have no recollection thereof. My mother took me regularly to the Art Institute of Chicago where the noisome smells and disgust of the stock yards, the unending granaries of the Midwest, and the great railroads that made Chicago their hub had been turned by newly minted connoisseurs into a place proudly presenting what its patrons managed to prise from a Europe too burdened with greatness and current bills to realize what they were in fact selling and could never be replaced.
There in the Edwardian lushness of the Palm Court she helped fashion my life, punctuated by china tea and petit fours. For these life enhancing meetings everything counted, the pictures one saw that day, what one said about them, how one said it; the validity of one’s point of view, how mildly one could correct someone’s who erred; above all the grace and gentility which distinguished a gentleman, even of 10 or 12. Yes, even what one had for tea counted… whether one took sugar (frowned upon) or lemon (vastly preferred). These were, no doubt, matters of the well-lived life but they did not per se make one a connoisseur, even an aspiring one.
That was because the Art Institute was not a home, not a place where connoisseurs displayed their collections and told a collector’s deeds of derring-do, the deeds which demonstrated their taste, their shrewdness and the necessary deep pockets to indulge them. No, the Art Institute was an institution to which well-heeled patrons bequeathed before they expired.
Nor did the matter of becoming a connoisseur take root and grow by visiting the notable collections laboriously, assiduously, obsessively assembled by the wealthy citizens of Downers Grove, Illinois and stolidly middle class DuPage County. For in DuPage, for all that it was the home to every bourgeois value, there were no such collections for a boy to see, admire and learn from. Connoisseurs were rare as hen’s teeth; unseen, unvisited, unknown even if they existed at all.
That is why my visit to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California was so important. It made the hitherto unimaginable stunningly real… something one could see, wish for, strive for… and have. Not just something beautiful… but something actual, splendid, dreams no longer just dreamt but achieved. In short it demonstrated a desirable destination for the boy who saw thereby the road which for him might otherwise have gone untaken.
Riding the rails to riches.
The Huntingtons were not merely rich. They verily had the Midas touch making them some of the wealthiest people on earth. Collis P. Huntington, one of the Big Four railroad tycoons of 19th century California, started it off with his major stock position in the Central Pacific
Railroad. Ironically I studied something about him when I was in high school in Los Angeles.
I entered an essay and speaking contest sponsored by the Native Sons of the Golden West.
My topic was the development of the great railroads of the Golden State. I took home a disappointing second prize. CP’s nephew and heir Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927) would
have been dismayed. He knew nothing of second places, except that they were for others than himself. For such a man nothing but a palace would do… with everything in it fit for an exacting connoisseur.
Awe in the gallery.
One never knows when destiny will manifest itself. Surely when my mother and I walked towards the entrance of the Huntington Library I had no idea that a few daubs of paint in a gilded frame were about to change my life and make it clear where I must go. But then I had never been to the Huntington Library before… It was originally the home of Henry Edwards Huntington, the man who shocked the grande dames of San Francisco when as a highly eligible bachelor he married his uncle’s widow Arabella and gave her a palace in which they could love each other.
But palaces require objects of beauty to adorn them… and so at age 60 Huntington began his education as a connoisseur. And make no mistake about it. This takes work, dedication, commitment, for there is no quick and easy way to rise to this eminence, even if one is supremely wealthy as Huntington was. He had to learn just like you and me. And so, properly advised by the world’s notable experts, he began… focusing on the stupendous work of Britain’s 18th century masters. Adding just one or two pictures a year, he slowly built over time the greatest group of such pictures… and now they were there for… me… aged just 16 or so.
The life-sized portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton (called “Pinkie”) by Lawrence.
The portrait of Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Painted in 1784, it’s a picture so enchanting that the painter told Mrs. Siddons, the greatest tragedienne of the age, he had signed it on the hem of her gown. Why? So that ages hence would know of his abject and total admiration for such genius.
And then, of course, the stunning event (for I can not just call this a picture) that is the portrait of Master Jonathan Buttall, “The Blue Boy” by Thomas Gainsborough. Purchased by Huntington from His Grace the Duke of Westminster, Britain’s richest peer, money was no object. And so three quarters of a million dollars was sent to the duke, making it the most expensive picture ever painted, a symbol of Britain’s decline and America’s growing ascendancy.
Now I could not take my eyes off it… and only did so to make a vow, then and there. It was bold, audacious, brash in the way of headstrong adolescence. I looked my mother in the eye and told her that “some day” I would have such pictures and be such a connoisseur. She smiled the “humor him” smile… but she could not have mistaken the steely determination in my eyes… and so…
… one of the first works I acquired for my collection is a magnificent picture of the 6th
Earl of Shaftesbury by Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy (1769- 1830). It is hanging in the Red Drawing Room right now… something Henry Edwards Huntington would have admired… coveted… I had kept my vow and, as one connoisseur to another, he would have known and respected it.
CHAPTER 1
Creme de la Creme
Friends and connoisseurs, imagine if you will, that you had the high honor and distinct privilege of being received by Princess Borghese. That is to say by Napoleon Buonaparte’s youngest sister Pauline Buonaparte
(1780-1825), the sixth child of Letizia Ramolino and Carlo Buonaparte.
That is to say, the Duchess of Guastalla, in her own right, then by marriage, Princess of Sulmona and Rossano, and then Imperial Princess of France, for she was all of these.
You would enter her presence and bow in reverence. While you did, her Imperial Highness would be fussing with her clothes, her hair, and ensuring that her footstool was arranged properly. And then you would notice that the footstool was a human being, a lady of the court, stripped, her gown pulled down so that her Imperial Highness might warm her toes upon the bosom of her lady in waiting.
And then you might well be surprised when this self same lady in waiting entered the conversation, though from an odd perspective, for she lay upon her back upon the floor, and twisted and turned to participate in the conversation as often as such contortions were necessary. Her breasts were artfully arranged each time her mistress moved her feet, the better to achieve maximum warmth.
You would notice that no comment was made upon this tableau, for it was not considered at all odd or noteworthy at the Court of Princess Pauline, and that is why you will enjoy this article, for you know nothing of the lady in question, and that is the thing that is truly odd, and shameful.
Princess Pauline is not the focus of this article, for should I cede that position to her, she would hijack this composition as she hijacked so many lives and situations in her colorful life. So I shall tell you a little bit, with the distinct understanding that this is but a fraction of what I could say, and would say, too, if I allowed myself to lose control. For this is an article about two silver gilt creme pots, from the Borghese service, and I must try to focus, difficult though that is.
A few facts about Pauline
She was perhaps the most beautiful woman of her time, and we have but to look at her naked sculpture, sculpted by Canova, to determine the matter for ourselves, for there is not an inch of that voluptuous body, not a half inch, that cannot be seen, and closely too. She was completely uneducated, never a day in school, could hardly write a letter, but what matter that, when she had the body of the century, and her brother was Emperor? She did what she would, when she would, the way she would, usually half naked, or more.
Of course she had lovers. But she approached them in a scientific fashion, measuring every pertinent male part and recording this information in a handy book, where the court ladies and their admirers might see, might compare, and might enjoy, purely in a scientific way of course, the data that are derived. M. Forbin was perhaps the most celebrated entry, for reasons I leave you to guess.
Now for such an indiscriminate lady who left nothing to the imagination, there must be a silver service of surpassing beauty and value, and in fact she had access to two, both given by Napoleon. The first, hers, the second, given to her husband, Prince Camillo (1775-1832), sixth Prince of Sulmona and Rossano. He was as cute as she was, and as desirable, but predictably, they soon quarreled, because there could only be one star in that firmament, and Pauline particularly could brook no competition.
Splendor, piece by piece
Napoleon took a shine to Prince Camillo. He was, after all, a “real Prince”, from the papal nobility, and he was a snob. He had two things he wanted for his sister: a magnificent palace, and the famous Borghese diamonds, perhaps the most famous set of gems in Europe.
In addition, he put up with Pauline’s flagrant behaviors, so long as they weren’t in public, and never bothered Napoleon for more and more and more, as his siblings surely did. No, Prince Camillo was something of a find. Thus, Napoleon gave him a grand service of silver gilt, eye-popping in size, radiance, and cost.
The service was done in silver gilt, which is to say, solid silver coated with gold. It looks like gold, but was not as costly to produce. Unfortunately, the fumes for creating such beauty were toxic. No one knows how many men died crafting the Borghese service, but it must have been considerable. However, no one bothered to count, after all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
And so the celebrated French silversmith, frequently used by the Imperial family, Martin-Guillaume Biennais, started work on this service in Paris in 1809, and continued right until the end of the Empire to add new pieces, including this pair of French silver gilt pots-a-creme.
This is the description of these two eye-popping items:
Each flaring cylindrical, on three paw feet with anthemion joints, with everted gadrooned rim, the slightly domed cover with leaf calyx and acorn finial, the wood side handle insert with mother-of-pearl, each body and cover engraved with a coat of arms, each marked on base, body and cover bezel.
5 1/8 in. (13 cm.) long over handle; 8 oz. 10 dwt. (279 gr.) gross weight
The arms are those of Borghese, as borne by Prince Camillo Borghese (2)
Gorgeous, aren’t they?
But almost as appealing as their form and luster, is the matter of their provenance, for these pieces, more than nearly any other silver service ever made, have been owned by one rich, celebrated person after another, beginning with Prince Camillo’s brother, Prince Francesco Borghese, and continuing through Don Antonio Licata, Prince Baucina, thence to Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick.
Now if you’re a sharp cookie you will surmise which Rockefeller and which McCormick. Edith was the youngest child of John D. Rockefeller, once the richest man in the world, the titan who controlled oil, Standard Oil. Edith thereby came in for a packet.
McCormick was the heir of Cyrus McCormick, who created the McCormick Reaper in 1831. This immediately lengthened the lives of farmers everywhere by mechanizing the onerous harvest, and made one of America’s greatest fortunes.
Oil, grain, what did such wealth on wealth need? Why, the most elaborate silver service ever created, of course. Nothing but the best for these plutocratic whelps.
And so, before their made on Wall St. relationship dissolved in acrimony, Edith commissioned a palace named Turicum. It faced Lake Michigan in Lake Forest, Illinois. There she spent precisely one night and not a minute more.
I can only hope she came home to her abbreviated abode with at least some of the Borghese service in her pocketbook. Ah, that’s why I love my job so… discovering these bits of cultural history and sharing them with you, dear friend. Edith, by the way, was the last person to attempt to reassemble the complete Borghese service, but even she failed to do so.
My turn
I am no snob, but I must confess I do like hanging with aristocrats, plutocrats, nobility, and sovereigns of every kind and variety. Thus, when in October 2004 I saw these silver gilt pots-a-creme in the Christie’s catalogue, I jumped at the opportunity to acquire not just an object, but provenance. Of course they would be expensive, with their unmatched provenance, they had to be expensive, or it wouldn’t have been worth acquiring. If you have to ask how much it costs, you shouldn’t play the game at all.
And so, I hardly gulped at all when I paid four times the high estimate. But what’s a man to do? I could not have them go to some yokel from Milwaukee. That would never do. Oh no, that would never, never do. And so I plunged and captured them for The Lant Collection, my name now linked forever with the worthies who preceded me in ownership. But, you ask, “What possible use do these items have?” Well, consider this:
The original function of these pots, part of a group of seven from the Borghese service, has been much debated. The form is known in pre-Revolutionary France, and it has been suggested that these dishes held individual casseroles for truffles, eggs or ortollans to be served as condiments for the main course. However, 18th century menus and recipes suggest that pots of this type were used to hold cooked cream-flavored dishes, which were served as side dishes, or entremets.
Now, what will I use these splendid dishes for? Why sir, to impress you of course.
And they have, haven’t they?
***
For the music to accompany this article, I have selected Antonio Vivaldi’s incomparable version of “La Follia”, “The Madness”. And, remember, as you listen, your future could well be determined, gentleman or lady, by just how you move your every limb.
First, join my Monarchy & Royalty Forum Facebook group. Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/293520900979423/
Then, pick up a copy of my autobiography, “A Connoisseur’s Journey” at www.writerssecrets.co.
CHAPTER 2
The Naked Truth. William Etty, R.A. and me.
The first time I saw a work by William Etty, Royal Academy, (1787-1849) was on the grand staircase of The Arts Club in London. It is a place where artists, their followers, their mentors, and their mistresses (female and male) hang out. The conversation is sleek and witty and fast moving. The aim is to demolish a reputation in a line before anyone can demolish yours in a word. Whispers are frequent,, so chic. Back slapping and back stabbing on the same back, at the same time. Waiters deliver clever lies on silver salvers, insisting you are The Next Great Talent.
Dress to impress, which has nothing to do with how many clothes you wear, but what those clothes reveal, or don’t. My conservator Simon Gillespie brought me, perhaps because he owed me a lunch, or perhaps just to see how this Yank could compete amidst the English, who make words seem effortless, and smooth aphorisms an inevitability. I loved it, even before I reached the top of the staircase where everyone moves as if everyone else is watching. Sometimes they even are…
The William Etty picture immediately arrested my eye, for it was flesh, more flesh, oceans of flesh, flesh in every tint and disposition. One could not help but notice it. It was, after all, the only picture chosen by the Club to grace its foyer, a gauntlet to the censorious.
“Who dat?,” I asked Simon, and my relationship with William Etty was launched;
a very audacious thing for this prim Midwestern lad, for whom natural acts were only meant to be mentioned behind closed doors and never in public, art be damned.
The next time I encountered William Etty was in the sale catalogue of the Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures, Christie’s New York, February, 2003. It is always worth seeing what the Forbes are up to, for they have unlimited funds, and informed taste.
(They also have one outstanding quirk. When they buy a work they hang it as is, warts and all. Thus in their collections, you will see great works in less than pristine condition, there potential covered in dust, dirt, frames cracked, degraded varnish, and despair.This policy conclusively proves they are Scots, for they are neer with a penny indeed.)
Of course I saw something that I wanted. With a Forbes sale, I nearly always do. And I have Mr. Gillespie to mop up any of the jolting imperfections they kept. It is better for your self esteem and the welfare of your pictures that you do so, for remember, we are but stewards, not merely owners.
William Etty, supremely talented, surpassingly ugly.
We all look into our looking glass with trepidation, fearing we will see another furrow cut deep by time’s winged chariot. But it was worse for William Etty, for he didn’t have a single day, not a single hour when he could admire himself or have others admire him. He was ugly. And he knew it. He also knew he was a master of canvass and brush. He had to forge a life built upon these twin certainties… this is what genius does, and Mr. Etty was that.
He began, as so many 18th and 19th century artists did, by painting pictures with Classical themes; pictures like “Cleopatra’s Arrival in Cilicia” (1821). They were grand, they were flagrant, they were wanton. They exuberantly celebrated the flesh at a time when such renditions were condemned and their worldly artists warned that the sin police were watching for any further transgressions. They watched Etty closely his entire life, but he followed his Muse in his own way, his obvious talent forging his way, providing a necessary shield from scurrilous commentary.
Soon every picture this prodigious master painted had at least one nude, male or female. And not timid or hesitant either, but bold, audacious, free, joyous.
Thus, having withdrawn from the world, unmarried, detached, he peopled his own inner sanction with the unmatched beauty of our species. This has always unnerved and frightened the Philistines of each generation, but not braver souls with a penchant for truth, to whom I adhere.
“Manlius Hurled From The Rock.”
The story of Marcus Manlius (died 384 BC) is well known, for it is a tale our dwindling cadre of Latin teachers tells with enthusiasm. It is not merely a story of Rome… but of all who stand forward at any time and place, risking everything to achieve a better world.
Manlius was born into the upper class, called patricians, becoming in due course Consul of Rome, the highest office, after his successful defence of the Eternal City against the conquering Gauls. He was a national hero.
While in office he began to question a society, his homeland, that gave so much to so few and so little to so many, the plebians. Thus he became a dangerous man. Charges against him were trumped up and pressed home by those who loathed him for deserting them, a recurring theme in human history, loyalty against truth, and back again.
Death to the traitor, ever lasting life from the painter.
In accordance with ancient tradition, Manlius was thrown, head first, onto the Tarpeian Rock, another martyr to the cause of liberty, equality, fraternity,
Etty took these facts and turned them into a masterpiece, a chef d’oeuvre which allowed him to make a point against injustice whilst showing his skill rendering the male body, in all its beauty… and its terrible vulnerability.
Profit in five minutes.
I bought the picture, at the high estimate. I wasn’t a retired gentleman then and money was (occasionally) no object. But a wondrous thing happened. Immediately upon my purchase, a Christie’s representative called me and, mirabile dictu, offered me twice the price should I sell it now. They had a client, a well-known decorator, who was charged with acquiring this picture for his client come what may. “Can you accommodate this gentleman, Dr. Lant?”.
I sensed I could get three times my purchase price, maybe even more. Never had a toilet break proved so costly, so valuable to me. And why in my sleeping chamber Manlius, one time Consul of Rome, is suspended in time, his beautiful head and lithe body not yet crushed and disfigured by injustice, but a glorious work by Etty, William Etty, the master of form and flesh. How could I ever have parted with it?
***
Musical note.
I have selected the brilliant musical score by Alex North from the 1960 film “Spartacus” to accompany this article. It is a film which deals with the ravages of inequality and what must be done, even unto death, to raise us all to a higher standard. He would have been a perfect subject for Master Etty, and for The Lant Collection.
***
Please visit me by going to google.com and typing in Jeffrey Lant The Red Drawing Room. You are welcome to this happy realm.
CHAPTER 3
Kaffee ole’
Friends and revered readers. Let me first acknowledge the steady stream of kindly correspondence from folks like you.
I shall endeavor to give plenty satisfaction… starting at once.
Your comments warm the cockles…
You, alas, cannot tell, but I am tickled pink, and not a wee bit either. Pinkness positively envelopes me. And for very good reason. For I have acquired a Royal Coffee Service once in the hands of Farmer George himself, that Most High and Mighty Prince, the third of that name, King George III. That’s dandy. But even better, it has the collector’s dream provenance.
George, King of England, King of Scotland, King of Ireland, King of France, was also (in due course) King of Hanover. That was where the Royal Windsor seed began, and he harbored a deep reverence for what so many of his British subjects disdained, the Great Pitt, Lord
Chatham, calling it “that despicable Electorate.”
Thus, as a kind of culinary precaution, H.M had coffee services crafted for all his palaces and castles in Britain with his Monarchical symbols and cypher and (in 1790) employed a Hanoverian Master to do as much for Hanover, his coddled realm.
Johann Georg Eckhardt did his Royal Patron proud and (indirectly) my family, too. Lauing, my Mother’s maiden name, was German… and specifically from Hanover. But they were unhappy Hanoverians, distressed by German militarism and tyranny.
Thus, they left the Motherland just in time to fight for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” on the Union side of the Civil War, where great, great, great grampa ended up as a Captain no less. That kind of meteoric rise was impossible in “Deutschland uber Allies.”
So I say God Save H.M. of Hanover, but leave his silver vessels to us, though we’ll never begrudge the current Hanoverian Pretender a cuppa. We Lauings can let bygones be bygones, though, I reiterate, we’ll keep the King’s silver, thank you very much.
Achtung! I have heard that some of you have failed to acquire my Memoirs, “A Connoisseur’s Journey.” Really, now, and I give it
for just a few pennies at www.writerssecrets.com
CHAPTER 4
Some Like it Hot
When M. de Lachaise of Sotheby’s Paris silver office called me about this item (lot 110), I knew some heavy coin would be involved. I pleaded poverty. “I have no money,” I said, “I am broke, partly due to liberal effusions to your kind self, sir.”
But he knows me all too well. He had but to dangle before my captivated eyes an item with the following traits… Old, very, very old, unique, nothing similar existing, a gem of a gem. Alright I said, I would consider it. But I knew M. de Lachaise knew his man.
And thus, I looked carefully at this sinuous object of acute desire, all the while telling myself no, no, no, get your mind off of it, and do not look at its beguiling features ever again upon pain of impecuniousness.
Some facts about me, Burgundy, and its famous mustard
Years ago when I was in graduate school at Harvard, I went to the University of Dijon for a summer. I took three books with me on my journey. First, a history of Burgundy and its capital, Dijon. Second, a volume covering the foods of Burgundy including moutard, escargot, and grenouille. Third, a book on the history and properties of its unmatched wines, including sublime Nuits-Saint-Georges.
I said I had gone to Burgundy to study French, but I fibbed just a bit. I really went to learn about its wines, its foods, and only thirdly, its complicated and Machiavellian maneuvers. I remember the food, I remember the wine… The history is murky.
To achieve my goal, I did something I had never done before, which proved to be an excellent endeavor. I ceased eating in the student refectory, though its food was as good as any hotel’s. I went in search of the authentic France, and I found it.
One day, I found a little bistro run by the proprietor and his buxom wife. In my halting French, I offered a proposition, namely, that I should have lunch daily at their establishment, in return for lessons and samplings of all the local delicacies, acclaimed around the world, now available at my fingertips.
La femme quickly dubbed me “le fou Americain”, and gave me the first of the traditional kisses cheek to cheek. They accepted my bargain with alacrity, and a certain responsibility, for I was a culinary virgin.
What followed is what followed everyday. I would come after the main lunchtime crowd had left. The proprietors would take their lunch with me. Tiny glasses of sheer ambrosia accompanied each course, each ingredient was explained, defined, commented on, and consumed at just the right moment, the perfect vintage before and after. Vive le vrai gourmet!
Now I was confronted by le grand moutardier, its low estimate 10,000 euros. This stunning piece and its silver stand were made by Louis II Samson in Toulouse, sometime between 1738 and 1740. Its mustard spoon was made between 1773 and 1774 by Bartheleme Samson. Lovely, isn’t it?
The fact that M. de Lachaise so loved it and had placed the item on the cover of one of his sale catalogues, where it stood in beauty and pride, defined its importance. I saw its allure at once… So did a host of eager buyers. I got one bid in at 10,000 euros before I was trampled by my competitors, who bid the object up to at least 30,000 euros or more.
Sadly, I did not acquire it, but it did give me more than a moment’s unexpected pleasure, for I had not thought so deeply or so well about my time in Burgundy and the lovely people who helped me understand France and its culture, now threatened on every side.
But instead of bemoaning the pernicious evasions of the present, let me quote instead from the Duke of Burgundy, from his famous speech from Shakespeare’s “Henry the Fifth”, scene two:
What rub or what impediment there is
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not, in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage.
Alas, she hath from France too long been chased…
I am sorry this moutardier will not enhance my collection, but I am grateful for the memory. Perhaps this is one reason I love France so, because when I think of her, I am always young, handsome, and ready for lunch a la Francais with people happy to dub me their “fou Americain”, which indeed I was, and joyous.
Dear friends, have you read my autobiography yet, “A Connoisseur’s Journey”? You really must, if you consider yourself a civilized being, for it is a most civilized book.
www.writerssecrets.co
CHAPTER 5
“Yo, el Rey.” A portrait of King Ferdinand VII of Spain. “Cowardly, selfish, grasping, suspicious, and vengeful”.
Imagine if you will, this poignant scene. It is 1802, and the most famous Spanish artist of his day, one of the most famous, too, in world history, Francisco Goya (1746-1828), aged 80, was sitting for his portrait by Vicente Lopez y Portana (1772-1850). It is a scene to rend the heart, for Goya, with just two more years to live, is a study in pain and dark thoughts.
He was old, he was venerable, he was renowned, and he was deeply
unhappy. For him, there was no more light, just the increasing darkness that played out in all his works.
By contrast, Vicente Lopez y Portana, age 53, was in his prime. He was immensely popular, prolific, a man of dexterity and charm, with a smooth style that captivated his sitters, whatever their rank, style, or title.
And so conceive of this, Goya crushed, burdened by terrible torments and nightmares, each step, each movement a source of pain, while an even deeper pain played out inside his brain, the brain of a genius who saw too much and could not be comforted.
He must have known by then, at the end of his long productive life, that he was amongst the immortals, and yet we can imagine his troubling thoughts, as he, now writing in blood, scrutinized this painter who was destined to succeed him as the preeminent portrait painter of Spain and the Indies.
Yes, Goya would be famous beyond fame, but he would be dead. And the man painting him, while no challenge to Goya’s immortality, would bealive, fertile, the new darling of old Spain, a man of light and promise. Thus, in the middle of the sitting, Goya, with the latitude given to the very old and very famous, growled at Portana, and chided him for taking so long.
Portana brushed it off with the practiced skill of any courtier. He knew that with his meticulous brush strokes and mastery of detail, he would enhance even Goya’s luster while feeding his own reputation. No growl from the master would ever change that. And so in due course, when Goya died, it was Portana who became the preeminent portrait painter at the Court of Madrid.
He had been patient, he had been good humored, he had tended his
knitting as my grandmother would say, and in due course, he had risen, like cream, to the top, which is when he painted his Most Catholic Majesty, Ferdinand (1784-1833), by the Grace of God.
One more word about Goya and Ferdinand
In 1801, Master Goya painted Charles IV of Spain and his family, including the then Infante Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias. Every art teacher alive points to the figures on this immense canvas and denigrates the Borbons of Spain, the ruling dynasty.
They wonder how a King like Charles and his wife, Queen Maria Luisa of Parma, could have allowed such thoughts that produce denigration and disgust. What was wrong with them? What was wrong with Spain? And how had Goya gotten away with it?
Thus, does this famous family portrait become grist for the revolutionary fervor that so often gripped troubled Iberia. I tell you this: these teachers are wrong. The King did not wink at Goya’s ingratitude, because Goya was not ungrateful. The Borbons had been very good to the Master. Nor did Goya risk the entire basis of his life at the Court of Spain by portraying his patrons as imbeciles and morons, if not worse, for he did not do so.
To be a King is to have but two divisions to society… the monarchy, and all the rest. This King and his busybody wife were not hoodwinked by Goya. Goya did not risk the entire basis of his life’s work by ridiculing his masters, Their Royal Highnesses, who had given him Court appointment after Court appointment throughout his entire life.
“Yo, el Rey” means that the great monarch of so many lands and peoples is above minute criticism by painters, or by anyone else. And so the picture as painted is proof positive that the King was confident, regal, certain, and undaunted, even when he was imprisoned in France by Napoleon.
It is not some secretive, sarcastic, condescending portrayal. It is simply yet another portrait in the long line of Spanish monarchs in touch with God, representing the people, never worried, always confident, and why not? They were their Most Catholic Majesties, and they knew it.
The advent of Vicente Lopez y Portana
When I first saw this fine portrait of Ferdinand VII at Christie’s in London in September, 2015, I fell into an immediate despair. I knew this Prince, and I so wanted him for The Lant Collection, to augment my assembly of Emperors. He, after all, was the Imperator of Spain and all its far-flung territories, one-sixth of the globe.
Despite the fact that His Majesty was amongst the most vilified monarchs in history, scarcely a kind word to be said for him and his works, I knew I should have to find the money, come what may, for the portrait immediately spoke to me.
Simon Gillespie, my conservator of so many years, was hesitant about my choice, for it was costly indeed. However, I have long ago reached the stage of my education in fine arts to make a good case, even against Simon, who has spent a lifetime conserving and maintaining important pictures.
He did not appreciate Ferdinand immediately, but the King, Portana, and I, in due course, changed his mind, so that he too began to understand the plight of this Prince, his portrait by Portana, and why this picture must be saved.
Ferdinand ruled at a time of the utmost change, violent change, no more apparent than in the Duke of Wellington’s campaigns against Napoleon in Spain, so authentically portrayed in the series “Sharpe’s Rifles” (1988).
The Ferdinand that Portana painted is smoother, more confident, more regal than
the vicissitudes that his difficult life might have suggested, which included four wives and no male heir. For him, every part of life was subject to constant change without notice. He was harried, often distraught, often dismissed, but, he survived. And while we denizens of liberal times may not appreciate a single one of his ruling principles, you must understand a Prince must do what he must to maintain the dynasty, like it or not.
Now this master work, once hanging in the Prado, Spain’s artistic jewel, hangs in the Blue Room, where I am writing to you now. He is not the only Emperor who hangs in this gilded chamber, nor even the first Spanish Emperor. I seem without necessarily knowing it, to have acquired a room full of Princes at the top of society, Imperial rank.
They are my particular study, and may never have been studied as a social class before my own researches and acquisitions. And so, King Ferdinand, dressed in the uniform of Captain General of Spain, wearing the fabulous Order of the Golden Fleece, stands before a draped table with the Spanish Regalia. A winged lion sustains this fauteuil. It is a common design in my collection.
This painting has a glorious provenance. It has frequently been exhibited in Spain, and once graced the collection of the Duke of Sotomayor, Grandee of Spain. Now this Prince resides in Cambridge, and greets me each time I enter or leave this grandiose chamber. “Viva el Rey”, even when he doesn’t deserve it. “Viva el pintor”, to whom this Prince owes so much, Vicente Lopez y Portana.
Musical note
For the music that accompanies this article, I have chosen Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805). This master composer’s airs were welcomed throughout all of Europe, but no more so than in Spain.
>From a rich legacy, it was difficult to select just the right music for you, when so much by Boccherini is readily available and superior. From such abundance, I have selected his “Fandango” Quintet for strings, guitar & castanets n. 4 in D major (G. 448). He, too, was an ornament to the Courts of the Borbons. Ole’!
***
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To get your copy, simply go to:
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… and the book will be emailed to you immediately. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think of it when you’re done.
CHAPTER 6
“They caw their lamentations in the eerie trees”. A pair of Russian ormolu and patinated-bronze twin branch candelabra circa 1810.
I asked the Christie’s representative when I saw these items in London, to tell me just what figures appeared on these startlingly bold candelabra.
Now remember, representatives of the auction houses are not history specialists. Their knowledge is usually skin deep, or not even that. Thus, I was not at all surprised by the feeble answer I received. “Umm, Dr. Lant, it’s some kind of a winged creature.” This, of course, wasn’t any help whatsoever, since I could see that for myself.
I wanted to test my hypothesis that the winged creatures in question were some of my favorite creatures of all, Harpies. Now you may be of the generation that calls your mother-in-law an old Harpy, but even then you probably had no idea what they were, or what you had shouted at your little loved relation, for whom any insult was sufficient.
But in fact, some of the most frightening of classical creatures fall under the rubric of Harpies, and I for one was ecstatic to find their pernicious aspect on a pair of graceful Russian candelabra.
First, a word on Harpies
Harpies appear in Greek and Roman mythology, having cameo spots in Homer and Hesiod, who, however, do not agree in their conclusions. Homer says they were the most repellant of creatures, vicious, cruel, and violent, the personification of the destructive nature of wind. Hesiod carried a torch for them, thinking them “lovely haired”. Chacun a son gout.
Most classical writers insisted there were just two Harpies, sisters. Their names were “Storm Swift” and “the Swift Wing”. Roman writer Virgil added a third Harpy, called “the Dark”. Homer said that there was at least one more, and so the classicists argued and argued, and never agreed; typical of academics.
To begin at the beginning, almost everyone agreed, except Hesiod, that Harpies were female monsters in the form of a predatory bird with a human face. Their daily occupations consisted of killing evil-doers, particularly those who had killed their families, and shredding various victims limb from limb, enjoying the flesh of their bones as a delicacy few besides Harpies have ever tasted.
Of course Hesiod, often contrary, does not agree. He called them “lovely haired” creatures. Thus, to the confusion of today’s puzzled classicists, there is no general agreement on whether Harpies were lovely or not, grim menacing predators or not, but where would classical scholars be without such topics for their Ph.D. dissertations?
I, for one, have no qualms whatsoever in telling you they were stern visaged, frightening of face and feature, altogether a creature you wouldn’t want to invite home for dinner, especially if your guests requested their favorite dish, the flesh of suicides. Oh, my, that must have been an acquired taste.
Perhaps the most famous story about Harpies was that concerning King Phineus of Thrace. He had been given the gift of prophecy by Zeus, though if that is true, one wonders why he didn’t use it on his own behalf when the need arose. In any event, Zeus became angry with him when Phineus blabbed that he had received this special power, and was now one of the beloved of Zeus, a position often filled, but never for very long.
Zeus was angry, a situation in which he often found himself, for his was a most imperial temperament. Irritated, he blinded King Phineus, and put him on an offshore island known to none but illegal gamblers. There, his minions set a table of such magnificence that even a vegan would be tempted.
He plucked a morsel from the heap of delicacies, and just before it hit his lips, the Harpies flew in with such precision flying as the Navy’s Blue Angels, perhaps even better. In short, Phineus was in perpetual despair. Something must be done, or what’s the point of being a King anyway?
In this, as in so many other classical tales, a handsome young man appears with the solution, as he so often does throughout the classics. “Harpies,” he said, “What the hell is going on here?” Then, Phineus pointed to the black sockets where his eyes had once been, and the fact that he never had a single morsel to eat, though the repast was sumptuous, not to mention, bird feathers everywhere.
Now, you will know of course that nothing fazed Jason, a man who went off with his Argonauts to fight a dragon wearing a cute outfit from Brooks Brothers Athens division that left nothing to the imagination. But more than cute legs, he had craft.
Thus, he inflicted upon the Harpies a withering defeat. It reminds me of when a bat flew into my condominium, and I was forced to open the front door and go after it with a butterfly net, wearing nothing but a smile. I looked cute, too, as my neighbors informed me. So did the candelabra in question.
Lot 106
To achieve a noteworthy and eye-catching collection, you must know everything, know everyone, have gone everywhere, and listened, listened, listened, to every kind of expert on every kind of subject. There is no such thing as an expiration date on learning.
In this case, I knew at once that this particular design was rare or quite possibly unique. I had never before seen Harpies pictured on any piece of neo-classical furniture or any objet d’art of the period. Yes, they were very likely unique.
The bare facts are these:
They are designed in the manner of Friedrich Bergenfeldt (1768-1822). Each with two candle-sockets on winged masks issuing from a winged sphinx on a tapering plinth with classical mounts.
Friedrich Bergenfeldt was the celebrated bronzier who worked in St. Petersburg in the late 1790’s. His work was influenced by the designs executed by Andrei Voronikhin. Together, both gentlemen particularly liked designs featuring winged dragons, tritons, and other fanciful features, and perhaps, a Harpy or two. Such work always excites my interest.
Thus, I was front and center for the actual auction, where the low estimate was a shade over $10,000 dollars, but, as I was not surprised to see, sold for nearly $15,000 dollars, the high estimate. As usual, I sent them on after acquisition to Roddy McVittie in Kent, England, to be brought up to date and to have the annoying holes for electricity filled in and returned to their original condition. I will not drill any of my works for electricity, and certainly not these beauties.
Now they reside on dark green marble columns supporting the arch leading to my Red Drawing Room, where I recite Dante’s “Inferno”, X111. For this, I assume an Attic disposition. I point to the Harpies ready for their day’s flight of destructiveness, and recite Dante as if I were Florentine; the way Pietro Pezzati, the painter of my portrait, taught me how to do.
“Here the repellant Harpies make their nests…
They have broad wings with razor sharp talons and a human neck and face,
Clawed feet, and swollen feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees.”
They are condemned to reside in the seventh ring of Hell, where their punishment is grim and eternal, not at all what they’re used to in the Red Drawing Room.
Musical notes
To accompany this article, I have selected the theme music by Bernard Herrmann from the 1963 film “Jason and the Argonauts”. It is, admittedly, a cheesy production, some of it downright embarrassing.
Curiously enough, the section dealing with the Harpies is one of the best aspects of the whole film, for the Harpies are made to measure, squawking, screeching, shredding vulnerable flesh with invulnerable talons. Oh, yes, they make quite a good show as they grab the food right out of King Phineus’ mouth. And there’s nothing quite so disgusting as a Harpy’s sharp talon in your mouth, not that I know personally, of course.
Nonetheless, the music is chipper and upbeat, the kind of thing heroes would appreciate, particularly when Jason, that comely lad, is near at hand. You can find it in any search engine where it’s ready for your deeds of derring–do.
Make sure you run it in tandem with this article. Here’s the link:
Before signing off, please be sure to join my Monarchy & Royalty Forum.
King Phineus did, and he is enjoying himself amongst his royal peers and
relations, having at last got a good meal.
He also received a free copy of my book, “Happy and Glorious. Encounters with the Windsors”, and so will you. Here’s the link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ofRoyalty
CHAPTER 7
Dinner at Eight. Osenat lots 201, 202, and 203. Ou la la.
Dear friends and connoisseurs, when was the last time you went to a dinner party, any dinner party, anywhere, with anyone? It was probably last Christmas or Thanksgiving, with relatives you hardly know and otherwise never see. Was it glamorous? Was it glitzy? Was it ou la la? Of course not, and that’s why you need to pay close attention to what I’m about to share with you.
What you’re seeing before you is my latest stunning acquisition from Paris for The Lant Collection. It is a Surtout de Table. To call it splendid is to be niggardly in your praise, for it is not just splendid, it is wow, over the top, in your face, the kind of thing you have never seen before, and now having seen, will pine the rest of your life to see again, to dine en prince.
You see, our grandmothers and great grandmothers knew a thing or two about dining which our grubby generation has completely lost. That is to say, that dining is not merely about eating, but about crafting the superior experience. That begins with entering a room with grace and that unmistakable je ne sais quoi that every tutored girl knew, and which, when mastered, made her a lady.
“Sit up, girl, do not let your back touch the front of the chair!” The constant admonition of every governess.
She entered a room where everything counted, the chandeliers, the mirrored walls, the turkey carpet, the old family silver on the sideboard, no china to be used, just an old set “given to grand papa by the king when he was ambassador…”
Each lady touched her hair just before entering the salon. Those grand creations in human hair might well slip, and so her hand was perpetually feeling the back of her head to ensure her hair stayed in place. Every lady must do this, every few minutes throughout the night, and woe if she failed.
She scrutinized every other lady in the room to see who had dressed a la mode, and who was wearing a frock seen before in public, shocking!
She scrutinized every gentleman in the room as well, particularly if she had marriageable daughters with minimal dowries. As for her eligible sons, she was a master at finding heiresses who were sufficiently wealthy to obscure the fact they were insufficiently pretty for her sons’ fastidious taste, and were unable to disguise that unavoidable fact.
Gentlemen might be warriors who fight great battles, win great victories,
and wear the decorations to prove it, but it was the ladies who fought the real wars, the essential wars. They, more than anyone, built a family by sending off their children with the greatest possible advantages. Honi soi qui mal y pense.
Now, this gentleman, this lady, were, if they dined at the very highest and most lordly reaches of Society, about to sit down at a piece of table decoration critical for the upper echelon then, unheard of today. This is the Surtout de Table, and it is a very special one. It would in all its grandeur be placed in the center of the immense dining table, an artifact of taste, wealth, and ostentation.
It was composed of a mirror glass platform that reflected the light of the chandeliers, and of all the sconces on the walls of the room. Fiat lux! Let there be light, and so there was, in dazzling proportions.
In this case, this being a masterful example of the genre, there were twelve presentation dishes made from engraved crystal sitting upon twelve vermeil stands. Vermeil, as you no doubt know, means a solid silver object coated with gold. Its producers often died to make it supreme. Such was the danger of this beauty. Hostesses stacked these presentation stands with fruit, flowers, and favors of their own devising. It must be magnificent, truly, unforgettably, magnificent.
Two intricate candelabra, supported by lavish cornucopia, graced the center of the table. To top it all off, these are signed pieces by Thomire (1751–1843), Napoleon’s favorite bronzier, a man whose signature graced only the highest quality goods, for the highest quality customer, at of course the highest possible price. The seller whispered to me that these were commissioned for an imperial customer, and I have no reason to disbelieve him.
A bit of superior strategy went into the acquisition of these truly splendid objects. The auction house, Osenat, divided this irreplaceable set into three portions: lots 201, 202, and 203. This was a mistake.
I had no intention of buying this lavish acquisition, but when I saw how it was laid out for sale, I put a toe in the water. I knew that if I didn’t acquire lot 201, I would not bid on lots 202 and 203, because the set would have already been broken up. Instead, I felt auction buyers squirm with the same problem that I faced: if I bought one, therefore, I would be very likely able to get the second lot (202) for a much lower price, because other people would not want to have a broken set either.
And so to my astonishment, in a bit of unbudgeted audacity, I bought lots 201 and 202 at superior prices. This left lot 203 to consider, but I passed on it. Why? Because I could tell in a minute these presentation platters were not part of the original set. They were insufficiently grand, and were no doubt associated.
Thus, I snapped up for a mere song objects of consummate beauty and historical significance. In other words, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I was that lucky fool, and in due course I shall find, I know, two presentation platters of a suitable date and magnificence to provide the mirror glass that will complete my grandiose imperial ensemble.
Now dear friend, it is time for you to read my memoirs, “A Connoisseur’s Journey”, which contain many such stories. You may get your copy at www.writerssecrets.co. You must not continue to deprive yourself without it.
Here is the music to accompany your banquet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBA4IwPCI24
You can be sure I will be using it here upon the first possible occasion, for you, like Jean Harlot, are a truly desirable guest.
CHAPTER 8
The one that got away.
Dear friends and fellow connoisseurs,
I have sad news and I say with Shakespeare, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of… auctions.
Every person who participates regularly in the great auctions on Earth, or even the tiniest auction, has stories of great triumphs… And the ones that got away.
Well, I cannot resist telling you this story. The lot in question features a rare kind of ancient Greek pattern. This particular set was owned by an …Italian prince who had supreme taste, but no money. He put the service on the market through Christie’s London, and the minute I saw it, I jumped for joy. This set is stunning… Unfortunately, I was not the only one who thought this. And so, when the auction day arrived, I was distressed to discover a host of European aristocrats and American multimillionaires standing in a cue, waiting to grab this object of our collective affection. I, like all the rest but one, was crushed. For days like this, one needs a little silver flask, whose contents are a mystery to all but the owner. I want you to know that I’m not feeling so blue now, blue, yes I think I saw an object in blue that I particularly liked, but I’ll be damned if I tell you what it is. Oh yes, the Italian plates in question on a low estimate of $9,000 went under the hammer for – hold your breath – $50,000, a mere bagatelle to you punters.
PS – have you gotten my memoirs yet? I have to tell you, I don’t care whether you read it or not. Just get it! You’ll be better for the purchase. Now the title is “A Connoisseurs Journey”, and it’s available at www.writerssecrets.co
CHAPTER 9
Chaconne a son gout
Friends and connoisseurs, sometimes in the auction market, you’re given a favor so happy, so joyous, so thrilling, you cannot believe it happened by random coincidence. You are sure there is some higher power who is shaking the dice for you, and it makes you feel wonderful.
Take the case of Lot 214 from the “Collections” sale, Sotheby’s New York.
This sale was chock-a-block with items that were simply created for me. My wish list soared, and I was chagrined when I considered my meager resources set against my enormous desire to acquire.
Getting ready.
I approach each sale in scientific spirit. I list all the items in which I am interested, then I find reasons why I don’t need them. I am perhaps truly happy only when I start with a large wish list, and end up with nothing. This gives me the feeling that I have done what I needed to do to remain competitive, but have not given way to avarice and rushed judgment.
I need to go through the entire process again, when another catalogue is sent to me by the auction houses, who truly know their man, or at least what’s in his checking account.
Because I am a frequent, obsessive purchaser, I receive many personal notes from the auction masters around the world. “Dr. Lant, have you seen…?” “Dr. Lant, Do you know about…?” “Dr. Lant, I found the most amazing item for The Lant Collection…” And so on. I’m just the boy who can’t say no.
My life is spent fighting temptations, and proving to myself I can resist them.
Oh, my, what a balancing act it is.
One left.
On the day of this particular auction, my bids were trumped in every case but one. I had waited impatiently through the entire day to place bids which were scattered in the catalogue, as they often are. I was the very picture of futility.
The representative at Sotheby’s knows me, and ventured to offer her opinion thus: “A difficult day for you, eh, Dr. Lant?” This meant prices were discouraging high, a good thing for the auction house and the seller, but deleterious to my interests. After all, I demand top quality for the lowest possible price.
Thus the afternoon crept slowly along, until there was but one item left on my wish list. I was half dozing when Lot 214 was called, but before the bidding began the auctioneer made what is called a salesroom notice, an update to what was printed in the catalog. So, the name of the silversmith was known after all, Thomas Ferran, a renowned expert, and so bidding on Lot 214 began.
I thought I heard the representative say “$10,000… $12,000… $20,000…” etc.. However, I was drowsy, not paying attention. Then I heard what she was relaying to me, and virtually shouted at her, “What is the bid? What is the current bid?”
Quick as a bunny, she named a price that was beneath the low estimate, always my benchmark number. “Do you want it?” she said. I shouted into the phone, “I’ll take that bid”, and the auctioneer’s hammer came down just at that moment, a photo finish. My direct involvement had taken under thirty seconds, and I acquired, whilst somewhat in a fog, a truly magnificent piece of silver, with a pedigree as long as your arm.
As all the world knows, this pedigree, called provenance, is what we connoisseurs love above all else.
Provenance, provenance, provenance
We all know the saying about real estate, that it’s location, location, location. But I have my own version of that: provenance, provenance, provenance. To understand why I consider this acquisition so very valuable, consider its history. It was made in 1716 during the reign of the first Hanoverian King, George I. It was a perilous time in English politics, when to be wrong might mean not merely exile, but the gallows, or worse.
People fought for their religion, even unto the death. Indeed they even went to the stake to be burned. Most people of course tried hard to be true to themselves, avoiding notice. But when death or dismemberment was the alternative, they might easily change their minds.
Then there were the members of the nobility… They had to make the right choice every time a choice must be made, and that was often. This silver was part of what could
be won, or lost.
“A Large George I Silver Salver On Foot, London”
This large (14 2/3rd inches in diameter) silver salver was elegantly crafted by master Farren in 1716. It was crafted for Sarah, Countess of Winchilsea, and bears her arms
Her husband, the 4th Earl, was the current head of a family which constantly found itself having to decide which royal faction to support. They could never afford to misjudge any situation.
Should they be for Catholic King James II? Or Protestant Queen Anne? Should they support the Parliament, or the royal establishment? Every decision mattered. And what about the Old Pretender across the seas, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who waited in France for a sign from God and Louis XIV? “God Save the King” might be their invariable motto, but which king?
The 4th Earl left Countess Sarah a widow in 1726. She married again in 1730, but not as grandly as her first marriage. I wonder whether she left this salver for the earls of Winchilsea, or kept it, a souvenir, a sterling reminder of when she was a countess of the realm. Perhaps she’d had enough of grandeur and its costs.
Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Poet
Sarah’s successor as Countess of Winchilsea was Anne Kingsmill (1661-1720), wife of the 5th Earl. She was a notable poet in her own right, indeed one of the first English women to be recognized by the grandest title of all, Poet.
Here are the opening lines to her poem “A Song”.
“Love, thou art best of Human Joys,
Our chiefest Happiness below;
All other Pleasures are but Toys”
That may be true for some, but for those of us who attend auctions, we have a higher aspiration.
Music
The music I have selected for this article is “Chaconne from the Duke of Gloucester’s Birthday Ode”. (1705) It is a sprightly measure indeed. You will find it any search engine.
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Dear friend, rumor has reached me that you have not yet acquired my memoirs, “A Connoisseur’s Journey.” You should get it now at www.writerssecrets.co. Why let me have all the fun?
CHAPTER 10
Rule, Britannia.
In 1815, Britain ruled not just the waves, but the world. There was of course the pesky matter of the United States in the War of 1812, but that was just a sideshow.
Thus when I saw this week this 1815 two handled tureen at auction in London at Sotheby’s, I scrutinized it ever so closely with my lorgnette.
Yes, it was magnificent. And though I had not a penny set aside for its purchase, I resolved to eat dog food with cheerfulness so that I would not have to let this magnificent piece go by. And so I bought it.
Now it is en route for its proper place in The Lant Collection, where its maker John Edward Terrey would be so pleased to see it, the United States and Britain having kissed and made up long ago.
I’ll tell you why I love silver so… It dazzles, it glistens, it shines, it shimmers, it makes you feel so damned wealthy and sophisticated. Bologna is Bologna, but it seems a vast repast when served on silver dishes, as dazzling as this one so evidently is.
This fine piece is the apt representative of a period of English wealth, massive international trade, perfect manners, and well deserved superiority. God save the King!
I wanted to share this particular acquisition with you right away, and remind you you are remiss for not having read my memoirs, which tell so many stories like this one.
It is called “A Connoisseurs Journey”, and you may get it at www.writerssecrets.co. If you have no time to read it, no worry. Sir Winston Churchill remarked that having a good book in the house makes one feel more intelligent than otherwise. It gives the aura of intelligence without the effort, and isn’t that just what you want? Ta ta for now!
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About the Author
Dr. Jeffrey Lant is known worldwide. He started in the media business when he was 5 years old, a Kindergartner in Downers Grove, Illinois, publishing his first newspaper article. Since then Dr. Lant has earned four university degrees, including the PhD from Harvard. He has taught at over 40 colleges and universities and is quite possibly the first to offer satellite courses. He has written over 30 books, thousands of articles and been a welcome guest on hundreds of radio and television programs. He has founded several successful corporations and businesses including his latest at …writerssecrets.com
His memoirs “A Connoisseur’s Journey” has garnered nine literary prizes that ensure its classic status. Its subtitle is “Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy.” A good read by this man of so many letters. Such a man can offer you thousands of insights into the business of becoming a successful writer. Be sure to sign up now at www.writerssecrets.co
SPECIAL WRITERS SECRETS CATALOG
“A Connoisseur’s Journey: Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy”
A multi-awards winning, gloriously written and unique memoir by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.
Awarded FIRST in Class at Southern California Book Festival.
FIRST in Class Great Southwest Book Festival
FIRST in Class Great Southeast Book Festival SECOND in Class at the Great Midwest Book Festival. SECOND in Class Great Northwest Book Festival
THIRD in Class at the London (England) Book Festival. THIRD in Class at the New England Book Fare.
THIRD in Class at the Paris France Book Festival
Dr. Lant also was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award with a focus on “A Connoisseur’s Journey” with this citation.
“Dr. Jeffrey Lant. On behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I congratulate you on the release of your Memoir, ‘A Connoisseur’s Journey’. Your work is a groundbreaking experiment into the use of musical citations in literature, adding depth and nuance to the reading experience.”
(signed) Charles D. Baker, Governor and Karyn E.Polito, Lieutenant Governor
“A Connoisseur’s Journey” available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/a-connoisseurs-journeybeing-the-artful-memoirs-of-a-man-of-wit-discernment-pluck-and-joy
Insubstantial Pageant: Ceremony and confusion at Queen Victoria’s Court by Dr. Jeffrey Lant 269 pages
Both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles read and liked “Insubstantial Pageant” and found it to be a very interesting book indeed especially since it was written by an American.
The author Dr. Jeffrey Lant was given unique access to the Royal Archive at Windsor Castle for his research of the material contained in this book.
A book that has always been and remains to be the most detailed book about the British Royal Events.
Throughout the reign of Queen Victoria, confusion and uncertainty marked the great ceremonials of the English Court. The young sovereign was, at her Coronation, recalled from refreshments to complete the service because a significant part of the ritual had been left out.
During her wedding, her bridegroom, Prince Albert, was wracked by nervous embarrassment about what he was supposed to do, while at the marriage of sir son the Prince of Wales troopers with drawn sabres charged into milling crowds and titled guests elbowed each other for a place.
As the Court’s at first limited ceremonies grew during the nineteenth century into great national pageants matters did not improve, exacerbating the situation after the Prince consort’s death was the Queen’s rooted position to display and royal pomp which gave her officials no chance to gain efficiency in organizing ceremonial. Matters came to a head in 1887, at the greatest royal pageant since the Coronation: the Queen’s Golden Jubilee had to be pulled together from scratch, in circumstances of the utmost dedication.
The next great royal event, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ten years later, had precedents to draw on and things went so much better that optimists thought the additional muddle had been laid to rest forever. Their expectations were confounded at the arrangement of Queen Victoria’s funeral, an event which in many respects converted to the traditional disorder.
In this remarkable book, Jeffrey L. Lant sees behind the scenes to set out in rich detail how great Victorian royal events developed. Drawn from a wide range of previously unpublished sources, the final result is a perceptive and rollicking piece of crucial history, which many of those involved might have hoped would go unrecorded, authoritative and thorough, this book will fascinate all who have ever marveled at the impressive discretion of Court officials.
Available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/insubstantial-pageant-ceremony-confusion-at-queenvictorias-court
CASH COPY – This isn’t just a book.
It’s a cash machine that will put money in your pocket every time you use it for the rest of your life.
Welcome to
CASH COPY
How To Offer Your Products And Services So Your Prospects Buy Them… NOW!
The money-making blockbuster by America’s master wordsmith
DR. JEFFREY LANT.
EVERY page of this unparalleled unique resource will produce money…. and has been doing so for tens of thousands already. CASH COPY is the real deal, and you will bless the day you got it and USED IT.
Go to: http://writerssecrets.co/products/cash-copy
Don’t copy writers. Become a copywriter.
Order from Writerssecrets.com NOW!
Select the package you like and start profiting online now… for never-to-be- repeated offers.
The Silver Package. Just $29.95.
Includes One Year Membership
50 one-hour interactive lectures by Dr. Jeffrey Lant on how to profit online. Included are unique details on copy writing, creating your e-book empire, and everything you need to know to profit online… and we do mean everything! You may attend the live program and/or listen to the video recordings… or both.
Available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/writers-secrets-silver-package
The Gold Package $49.95.
Includes everything in the Silver Package PLUS
Your digitized copy of ”CASH COPY: How to offer your products and services so your prospects buy them NOW!” 480 pages. The most important book on copywriting ever written. $9.95 retail value. If you can’t make a million dollars plus with this book, YOU DIDN’T READ IT!
Your copy of Dr.Lant’s autobiography. 396 pages. $29.95 retail value. “A Connoisseur’s Journey: Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy”). The most detailed book on becoming a multi-millionaire and living like one! Already has earned 8 literary prizes for excellence!
Available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/writers-secrets-gold-package
Platinum Package $79.95
Includes EVERYTHING in the Silver & Gold Packages AND
500 articles by Dr. Lant you can use to build traffic. Publish them in your blogs, online or off, (just credit Dr. Lant as author).
“How to make a whole lot more than $1,000,000 writing, commissioning, publishing and selling ‘how to’ information.” 548 pages. $9.95 retail.
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Platinum Membership entitles you to sell our products and packages and earn big commission bucks now.
EVEN MORE! PLATINUM is where it’s at! Look see…
Order immediately and get a FREE COPY of Dr. Lant’s best-selling book “The Unabashed Self-Promoter’s Guide: What every man, woman, child and organization needs to know about getting ahead by exploiting the media.” $9.95 retail value. 366 pages
EVEN MORE! Bring on the Jamboree. Want to tap into our database and make influential book publishing, marketing and promotional contacts WORLDWIDE. >From time to time, Dr. Lant hosts the Jamborees where you are welcome to share contacts with your prospects worldwide. These informal meetings deliver money- making contacts you can use daily!
And STILL MORE! When you get your Platinum Package, you get a key to The Vault, the special area where Dr. Lant keeps a trove of incredible money-making items. There is so much in The Vault for your benefit, we can confidently predict you will never get through it all!
Platinum Package available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/writers-secrets-platinumpackage
“How To Make A Whole Lot More Than $1,000,000 Writing, Commissioning, Publishing and Selling “How To” Information” by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
A book that can make you a millionaire or better.
Thousands of people worldwide are now using this book to do two things: improve the quality of the how-to information they deliver to their readers and listeners and to make more money. In other words, with this resource they are doing well by doing good.
Now more than ever your customers are looking for value. They not only want you to know what you’re writing about… they want you to present this information in the most usable format possible. Too, you want to get back not only the money you invest in your products but a substantial profit — and as quickly as possible. In this book you’ll learn precisely how to achieve both objectives.
Available at: http://writerssecrets.co/products/how-to-make-a-whole-lot-more-than-1-000000-writing-commissioning-publishing-and-selling-how-to-information
More Books by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Our Harvard: Reflections On College Life By Twenty-two Distinguished Graduates 344 pages
The Consultant’s Kit: Establishing and operating your successful consulting business 221 pages
Development Today: A fund raising guide for non-profit organizations 278 pages
The unabashed promoter’s guide: What every man, woman, child aid
organization needs to know about getting ahead by exploiting the media 366 pages
How to make at least $100,000 every year as as successful consultant in your own own field: The complete guide to succeeding in the advice business, 316 pages
Money Talks: The complete guide to creating a profitable workshop or seminar in any field 329 pages
Money making marketing: Finding the people who need what you’re selling and making sure they buy it. 286 pages
Multi-Level Marketing: The complete guide to generating, closing & working with all the prospects you need to make real money every month in network marketing 146 pages
No More Cold Calls: The complete guide to generating… and closing…
all the prospects you need to become a multi-millionaire by selling your service 675 pages – “You saw the best there was in me” Thoughts for Mother’s Day 2016.
“We’ll always have Paris.” A story of wealth, obsessions, and the emperor’s ransom collected and dispersed by Christopher Forbes, connoisseur.
Available at: http://writerssecrets.co and www.amazon.com
Check out Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Author Page at Author Central for all his latest books, events and blog posts.
Go to: http://www.amazon.com/author/jeffreylant/
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It was a great honor to work with Dr. Jeffrey Lant during his tenure as CEO of Worldprofit. This
article was given to Daniel Fischer while Dr. Jeffrey Lant was at Worldprofit.
Yours In Success,
Daniel Fischer Dano Enterprises
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