Wild Times at Parnham Park
A giant cabinet of curiosities earned equally big sums at Dreweatts’ May 13 auction.
Guests and onlookers were taken on a grand tour at Dreweatts' May 13 auction. Organized and held at the auction house's Newbury office, the sale showcased an eclectic collection of rare scientific finds and eccentric fine art formally owned by artist and art collector James Perkins.
Nestled in the rural fields of Dorset near England's famous Jurassic Coast, Parnham Park is the region's oldest and most historic estate. The house was built around 1522 by wealthy merchant Robert Strode and remodeled by renowned Regency-style architect John Nash in 1810.
By the time Perkins purchased the home and made it into what he calls a "cabinet of curiosities," Parnham Park had been an American airbase in World War II, a school for woodworkers and artisans in the 1970s, and a surviving relic of a devastating fire in 2017. Perkins is working to bring the home back to its stately charm with plans from architectural designer Thomas Heatherwick, and proceeds from this sale were donated to its restoration. "When you see a house in need, you feel like you want to save it and bring it back because, much like my cabinet of curiosities inside, the building itself is a lost treasure," says the artist in a Dreweatts video.
Among the fascinating selections for sale, which earned a total of $2.98 million, were what Dreweatts refers to as "natural history wonders." This included a complete, well-preserved Woolly Mammoth skeleton that sold for a whopping $332,401. Towering at 300 centimeters (9.8 feet), this excellent-condition mammoth once walked the cold lands of modern-day Poland during the Upper Pleistocene epoch.
Also winning big for $91,605 was a finely preserved flat Ichthyosaur fossil from the Toarcian age of the Lower Jurassic period that once lived in present-day Holzmaden, Germany, and a giant Irish Elk skull with 12-foot antlers that sold for $66,694.
Although the auction included many fine and decorative arts objects, such as a 19th-century copy plaster bust of the Melpomene sculpture at the Louvre, animals (once alive and imagined) appealed to bidders. A taxidermy lion capped with a crown earned $20,085, and a giant skeleton of a giraffe sporting high-heeled shoes was purchased for $14,227.
More traditional art pieces, like an oil on canvas 18th–19th century European School scene featuring hunters watering hound dogs, attracted a $43,440 win, and an 18th century Continental School oil on canvas titled Waterbirds, which featured an exotic flock of colorful birds, was bought for $10,711. Despite some chips, peeling, and flaking, a carved and painted polychrome United Kingdom royal coat of arms displaying the iconic crowned lion and unicorn garnered a stately $13,389.
For more information about Parnham Park and the May 13 auction, visit the Dreweatts Auctions website.
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