ANTIQUES UNDER THE HAMMER December assistance, Biffin’s fame and talent soon spread. In fact, she became so well known Charles Dickens mentioned her in his novels Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit. Her story in some ways reflected Crofts’ own. A day before his 21st birthday on March 25, 1945, having joined the Fleet Air Arm while training in America, the engine of his Corsair F4U burst into flames during take-off. Both legs were amputated and he spent three and a half years recovering in hospital. Later, under the guidance of the Stamford dealer Major Bernard Edinburgh, Croft became an antiques dealer and by 1958 was elected a member of the British Antique Dealers Association. Despite his disability, he was a keen sailor, owning an 88-year-old clinker-built Norfolk beach boat.
Right A self-portrait
by Sarah Biffin, courtesy of the Wellcome Collection
TRIUMPH OVER TRAGEDY
SALEROOM SPOTLIGHT
The collection of a Cambridgeshire antiques dealer who lost both legs in a flying accident in WWII goes under the hammer in December
T
here is one picture in the collection of the late Peter Crofts (1924-2001), himself a double amputee following a flying accident, which had a particular resonance with him. It was a watercolour by the early 19th-century Somerset artist Sarah Biffin (1784-1850) who, having been born without limbs, fought and succeeded to overcome a lifetime of prejudice. Suffering from the congenital deformity phocomelia, Biffin taught herself to write, paint and hold scissors using her mouth. From the age of about 13, she earned £5 a year touring the country as part of Emmanuel Dukes’ travelling show during which time she was, in 1818, introduced to William, 16th Earl of Morton, who was so impressed with her skills he became her patron. Overcoming the prejudices of the age, which treated disability with superstition and with little medical
62 ANTIQUE COLLECTING
Above right The rummer has an estimate of £400£600 in this month’s sale Right & below The feathers are inscribed Drawn by Miss Biffin, 6th August 1812. The reverse features a 1830 newspaper article
It is no surprise that one of the 100 lots in the former Wisbech dealer’s collection, going under the hammer at Sworders’ sale on December 14-15, is a 10 x 12cm a watercolour study of feathers by Biffin, inscribed Drawn by Miss Biffin, 6th August 1812. It is being sold with a Georgian handbill advertising her as an attraction at a local racing meet, where she would be selling “likenesses painted on ivory for three guineas”. The advert reads: This Young Lady was born deficient of Arms and Legs, she is of a comely appearance, Twenty-eight years of age and is only Thirty-seven Inches High. In 2019, a self-portrait miniature by Biffin smashed its pre-sale estimate of £1,200-£800 when it sold for £137,500 at Sotheby’s. The price achieved recognising the talent of a person with disabilities who was far more talented than many of her contemporaries, who, on the whole, would have been men.
