#Adlington #Hall #collection #Dreweatts #Antique #Collecting
The historic collection of Adlington Hall in Cheshire, comprising an array of pictures, furniture, and objets de vertu is set to go under the hammer at Dreweatts auction house on January 22.
Offered as part of Dreweatts’ Town & Country: The Collections of Baroness Rawlings, Eaton Square and Adlington Hall, Cheshire sale will offer pieces accumulated by successive generations of the Legh family over 700 years.
Adlington Hall was initially constructed between 1480 and 1505 – at the dawn of the Tudor dynasty – though the building and its collection have constantly evolved with the times. Its history has been witnessed and enjoyed by the Legh family, who inherited the estate in the early 14th century. Under the supervision of Colonel Thomas Legh, Adlington became a refuge for the Royalists during the English Civil War; its rooms and treasures within were thereafter built upon by Charles Legh, whose “tastes for music, poetry, paintings, and architecture” were noted by English antiquary and historian George Ormerod.
The resultant collection bears testament to the grandeur of Adlington Hall and the surrounding countryside – its mahogany furnishings, gilt timepieces, and family-tree of portraits bespeak the typical yet erudite tastes of its one-time residents and the evolving fashions of aristocratic families.
Many of the portraits came to Adlington by descent, through the marriage of Lady Isabella Robartes to John Legh, from the Earls of Radnor at Llanhydrock in Cornwall. Perhaps one of the most documented works is a rare series of estate portraits by Thomas Bardwell, commissioned by Charles Legh to celebrate his remodelling of the house in 1757. They are featured in John Harris’ seminal publication The Artist and the Country House. They are part of a long tradition of country house portraiture in Britain and demonstrate Bardwell’s skill as a perspectivist in the cartographic tradition.
Other artists represented in the collection include: John Souch, who was active in the early seventeenth century; Thomas Hudson, tutor to Joshua Reynolds and Joseph Wright, and a portraitist in his own right who painted George Frideric Handel, who once played the organ and drafted a composition at Adlington; Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot, a prominent Flemish painter who spent a large part of his career in the English Midlands; John Opie, a member of the Strawberry Hill Set whose contemporaries included Henry Fuseli, Samuel Johnson, and Mary Wollstonecraft; and Wilfrid de Glehn, an Impressionist who was elected to the Royal Academy in 1932.
Joe Robinson, Head of the House Sales and Private Collections Department at Dreweatts, commented: “Adlington Hall is a treasure trove of English history and patronage, its rooms having been adorned for centuries by artworks from the very best artists and artisans of their day. We at Dreweatts are proud to be handling the historically significant collection of this most beloved country house.”
Among the highlights in the sale include:
A large-scale portrait attributed to Mary Beale, one of the great portraitists of the seventeenth century, after Sir Peter Lely; the subject is Letitia Isabella Smith, Countess of Radnor, was described as “a great beaty indeed” by Samuel Pepys and was also the subject of a celebrated story in the memoirs of Count Grammont.
Other standout pictures include a portrait of Thomas Legh by the English painter Thomas Hudson, and a portrait of Sir Urian Legh, who was knighted by Robert Devereux in 1596 for his honour at Cadiz and is thought to be the ‘English man’ wooed in the famous ballad The Spanish Lady’s Love.
An Austin ‘Junior 40’ child’s pedal car in the sale is reflective of Adlington’s more recent history as a family home. The car was produced between 1949 and 1971 at a dedicated factory in Bargoed, South Wales, with a workforce mostly comprising of ex-coal miners disabled by pneumoconiosis. With coachwork finished in bright red, the pedal car is one of just 32,098 examples made at the factory. In recent years the appeal of the Austin J40 has swelled with the ‘Settrington Cup’ held annually at the Goodwood Revival.
A Charles II silvered and carved wood cabinet stand, with a leaf-carved edge and elaborate frieze depicting flowers and putti amongst other foliage. Mounted with outset caryatid supports on each leg, the piece dates from around 1670.
A double portrait of Thomas Legh the Elder with his wife Ann Gobarte, accompanied by a spaniel; painted by John Souch of Chester, its subjects had traditionally been identified as Thomas Legh the Younger and his wife Mary.
An unusual pair of Tibetan-style Chinese aubergine glazed ewers, the front and spout of which are mounted with wooden European handles.
A portrait of Sarah Bodvile, the Honourable Mrs Robert Robartes, later Viscountess Bodmin and Countess of Radnor, attributed to Sir Peter Lely and studio; set within a Kentian frame surmounted by an earl’s coronet, the picture was likely commissioned by the sitter for Llanhydrock, and later inherited by Lady Isabella Legh.
A number of large-scale pictures depicting the Adlington estate by the eighteenth-century painter Thomas Bardwell, including a rare set of views.
