Our next in the series ‘Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer’ returns to Temple Newsam and the film that focuses on the antique dealer R.A. Lee – you can see the final version of the film HERE.
For this ‘Behind the Scenes’ we can recount a fascinating story about Ronald A. Lee, as told to us by his daughter Georgina Gough. You can also hear Georgina in the YoD films telling us about her father and the R.A. Lee business, both in the Temple Newsam film of course, and in the other YoD film devoted to R.A. Lee at the V&A South Kensington. We also did an oral history interview with Georgina as part of the Voices of the Trade strand of the research project – you can read more about that HERE.
Georgina’s story is related to another object that Ronald Lee sold to a museum, this time a ’13th century Ciborium’ sold to The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh by R.A. Lee in 1966. As some of our readers will know, originally there were to be 7 YoD trails, before Covid 19 intervened, and The National Museum of Scotland was initially part of the larger group of museums we had planned for the YoD trails. In fact, as well as the five existing YoD partner museums (Temple Newsam, Lady Lever Art Gallery, The Bowes Museum, V&A Museum and Preston Park Museum), we had also included The Ashmolean Museum as part of the YoD, but for various reasons, all arising from the Covid pandemic, we could no longer include The Ashmolean Museum and National Museum of Scotland. The YoD was an awful lot of work, so maybe creating films of another 20 objects in another 2 museums would have been a bit of a stretch; but Ronald Lee’s Ciborium would certainly have been part of the YoD films at National Museum of Scotland had they gone ahead.
Anyway, Georgina’s story about her father does help us highlight yet another example of the relationship between antique dealers and public museums and recounts a lovely story about her father, Ronald Lee and his wife Betty. As Georgina recalls, Ronald bought his wife Betty a present, a small pierced 13th century copper-gilt circular foot, seemingly from the base of a cup or a bowl – Ronald gave Betty this small part-object sometime in the 1950s (see below). Ronald paid £30 for the 13th Century circular foot, and Georgina recalls that Betty placed the small object on the mantlepiece at home – which at that date would have been Ormeley Lodge on Ham Common to the south west of London.
In late April 1965, Ronald went, as usual, to a view an auction sale at Sotheby’s in New Bond Street – ‘Highly Important Medieval Works of Art, Limoges Painted Enamels and a St. Porchaire Salt’ (Sale Tuesday 27th April 1965). Amongst the things he saw was Lot 57, ‘AN INTERESTING LIMOGES BOWL FROM A CIBORIUM, of copper-gilt with champleve enamel…..(foot missing)…French, early 13th Century’, The Property of Mrs. M. Craig-de Cleves’. (see below).
Like many antique dealers, Ronald seems to have had a form of photographic memory and he recalled the small copper-gilt foot on the mantlepiece at home. Georgina remembers the story, which was also reported in the Press at the time – her father rushed home, popped the circular foot in his pocket and returned to Sotheby’s where he surreptitiously offered the foot to the bowl – and like Cinderella’s slipper if fitted perfectly!
Ronald bought the bowl, paying £2,600 for it at the auction. The newspaper report quoted Ronald – ‘he supposed it would still have to belong to his wife, but if any museum was really anxious to have it, they might be willing to let it go’. Georgina does not recall how such a conversation went, but Ronald offered the bowl, now with its foot, in a selling Exhibition of Works of Art and Antiques held at his home/shop at Byfleet Manor in Surrey in June 1965, where it was fully described, and was one of only 3 full colour images in the catalogue (see below).
Of course R. A. Lee did sell the Ciborium Bowl with its foot – it was sold in August 1966 to the National Museum of Scotland for £8,500. It remains in their collection – see HERE.
Perhaps the sad part of the story is not that Ronald sold his wife’s present (Betty must have agreed), but that the Ciborium has subsequently been reassessed and is now thought to be a 19th century copy. Notwithstanding this, Ronald Lee’s reuniting the foot to the bowl is such a brilliant story and one we would have told had we managed to include National Museum of Scotland in the YoD digital trails!
[I am reminded that we’ve highlighted the story about R A Lee and the ciborium before…in the blog in July 2017 but it’s such a lovely story!….and was nearly 10 years ago!….but do read the earlier version too!]
Do look out for the next in the series of ‘Behind the Scenes of the Year of the Dealer’.
Mark
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