News and Events

Busby are delighted to announce the inclusion in the upcoming Fine Art & Antiques sale of the Antonia Cole collection.

Included in this estate are a number of items from Cam House, Campden Hill, W.8, which was the property of Mrs Evelyn St. George, Antonia Cole’s grandmother.

Evelyn St George, nee Baker, married Howard Bligh St George in 1891, and some years later started a long affair with his cousin, the artist William Orpen. She moved to London in 1912 where she met many of the successful artists of the day.

Upon her death, Sotheby’s held the auction of the contents of the property on the 24^th of July, 1939: ‘Catalogue of the important contents of Cam House, Campden Hill, W.8, the property of Mrs. Evelyn St. George’. A number of items listed in this catalogue must have remained in the family, and are now to be offered for sale by Busby on the 21^st November, for the first time since 1939.

‘33 A console table, in the manner of William Kent, gilt, mounted with a green marble slab, the frieze carved with running Vitruvian scrolls above gadroons, the apron decorated with a mask between flower flower-heads and scrolling foliage, the two supports carved with a lion mask above flowers and fruits on the shoulders and finishing in paw feet, 18^th century, 5ft. 9in wide.’ This is offered as lot 380 next week, with a sale estimate of £6,000-£8,000.

Numerous other items for sale on the 21^st of November can be found in this comprehensive catalogue, which include lot 351, an 18^th century Soho tapestry depicting Penelope and Ulysses within a garden landscape. This tapestry can be seen in the Sotheby’s sale as lot 264, where it is described as having formed the head panel of a four-post bed belonging to Sir William Orpen RA, pictured below.

The Antonia Cole collection also contains a suite of green painted faux bamboo garden furniture and an impressive pair of girandole mirrors supplied to the current vendor's family by the English artist and designer Oliver Messel during their time residing in Fustic House, St. Lucy, Barbados. To this day Fustic House retains the style and much of the furniture chosen by Messel in the 1960s, the garden furniture near identical to that which is being offered for sale on November 21^st as lots 472 and 473.