Instinct, Scholarship & Curiosity
THE JAN FINCH COLLECTION Wednesday 9 November
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Instinct, Scholarship & Curiosity
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THE JAN FINCH COLLECTION Wednesday 9 November
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With a natural curiosity and a tremendous thirst for knowledge, the late Jan Ellen Finch (1952-2021), led the London-based Finch & Co. over four decades to become one of the best known and exciting dealerships of the modern era. Starting as part of a motherdaughter endeavour trading dealer to dealer at Portobello Market in the 1980s, Jan worked alongside her lifelong business partner and husband, Craig, to form the progressive dealership we know today, consistently pushing the boundaries by embracing new ways of selling and developing a distinctive ‘look’, all based on the business’s three driving forces: instinct, scholarship, and curiosity.
Jan’s impressive career is now marked in a sale of close-to four hundred hugely varied lots, as Craig seeks to downsize and spend more time outside of the UK. Married in 1993, the couple became known for their ‘wunderkammer’ mix of ethnographic art, European sculpture, and antiquities, before branching out to include modern British art. They became a regular fixture at international trade fairs and events such as Masterpiece, Grosvenor House, and BRAFA, as well as their own biannual exhibition in St James’s. The exhibition’s accompanying catalogues, diligently researched and sumptuously produced, have become the bulwark of many a collector’s resource library. Writing in 2021, fellow dealer Ted Few wrote that Finch created “a unique business which prized the unusual and mysterious over the purely commercial. Adventurous in their selection of objects they were just as imaginative in their presentation, causing regular gasps from visitors”.
Sworders’ sale includes both carefully chosen items of Finch & Co stock and many pieces from Jan’s personal collection, most of which are to be offered without reserve. Presented together, the collection is a celebration of many of Jan’s passions, which extended beyond her professional work to gardening, horse racing, and cooking, which she mastered impeccably. Together with her husband, she would often be found trying new local cuisines and enjoying music on trips away, and even during the peak of Jan’s illness, the pair travelled to Venice to see Verdi’s La Traviata at the Teatro la Fenice. When at home near Banbury, Jan was a keen gardener and cook and a library of hundreds of related books will be sold alongside the contents of a wine cellar and garden furnishings.
Curiosities
Married in 1993, Jan and Craig Finch became known for their ‘wunderkammer’ mix of rare items with impeccable provenance, creating the greatest cabinet of curiosities for the 21st century.
OVERLEAF
Lot 27 A pair of large Neapolitan 'crèche' or 'presepio' figures, probably early 18th century £400-600
CLOCKWISE
Lot 3 A pair of English green silk brocaded trousers, 17th/18th century, said to have once been worn by Sir Jeffrey Hudson (16191682), court dwarf to Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I £800-1,200
Lot 11 A South American Rhea Egg, 19th century, carved with the legend 'The Oriental Republic of Uruguay is composed of Three Cities, Eighteen Villages....... 11th January 1857', 14cm overall £200-400
Lot 2 A green taxidermy parrot, 40cm high overall £150-300
Lot 7 Large conch shells, further smaller shells and coral, the largest 38cm long £200-300
Ethnographic Art
OVERLEAF
A group of Australian Aboriginal, Oceanic, and African artefacts, including lot 34 (fourth from left), a Western Polynesian ironwood war club of ‘Apai Apai’ form, £3,000-5,000, estimates ranging from £400 to £5,000
CLOCKWISE
Lot 28 A Luba-Hemba Congolese carved wood headrest, late 19th/early 20th century, 14cm high £1,500-2,500
Lot 34 A Western Polynesian ironwood war club of ‘Apai Apai’ form, mid-late 18th century, 121cm long £3,000-5,000
Lot 49 A very rare South African rhinoceros horn staff or sceptre, mid-19th century, Tsonga or North Nguri, 39.5cm long £6,000-8,000
Lot 64 A rare Philippine ‘basketry’ hat, 19th century, 13cm wide £1,500-2,000
Connecting Jan’s love of sailing with her interest in the Age of Discovery and Cook’s Enlightenment voyages, ethnographic art became a mainstay of the Finch look. Many Oceanic clubs inevitably found their way into stock and often into her private collection.
Maritime Art
OVERLEAF
Lot 102 A fine French Prisoner of War Ship model, c.1820, a fortyeight-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, 51cm wide £7,000-10,000
CLOCKWISE
Lot 100 A bronze medal commemorating the Battle of Texel, and the death of Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp, 1653, 7cm diameter £100-200
Lot 88 A sailor’s large scrimshaw pan-bone plaque, early 19th century, 38cm wide £3,000-5,000
Lot 97 A rare sailor’s walrus ivory Teetotum Ball, late 17th century, 4cm wide £1,500-2,500
Lot 92 A sailor’s Scrimshaw twist carved whalebone cane, mid19th century, 85cm long £200-400
After reading Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick as a child, Jan would forever hold an interest in sailor-related art and the allure of the open seas, travel, and voyages that were discovered therein.
Works of Art
OVERLEAF
Lot 133 A pair of Regency bronze portrait busts of George IV and the Duke of York, 29cm high £400-600
CLOCKWISE
Lot 132 A medieval Tournai (Belgian) bronze figure, probably mid 15th century, depicting Bishop Saint Albertos Magrus, ‘Albert the Great’ (1193-1280), 33cm high £2,500-5,000
Lot 117 A Chinese polychrome wall fresco, Ming dynasty (13681644) £1,000-2,000
Lot 146 A Tibetan gilt copper repousse snow lion mask, 19th century £1,500-2,500
Lot 103 A pair of boxwood roundels, 17/18th century, AustroGerman £700-1,000
An unfulfilled wish to travel to Tibet was substituted with the buying and selling of the country’s fine artefacts
Antiquities
OVERLEAF
Lot 205 An Irish Celtic limestone slab, 1st-2nd century AD £2,000-3,000
CLOCKWISE
Lot 222 An Egyptian serpentine Cippus ‘Magical’ Stela, 3rd century B.C. to 1st century A.D. £600-800
Lot 224 An ancient Turkish bronze belt plate section, 860-590 B.C., Urartu, Eastern Anatolian £400-600
Lot 218 An Egyptian carved wood headrest, Ramesside period, 13th-12th century B.C. £2,500-3,500
Lot 213 A Celtic arm ring of cast copper alloy, 8th century B.C. £500-800
As a child alongside her grandfather, Jan regularly visited the British Museum, as well as those in Oxford and Cambridge. It was during these trips that her distinctive ‘eye’ was first developed and honed, and her first love was always the Egyptian rooms. In the 1960s, she donated her pocket money to a school initiative supporting the relocation of Abu Simbel and a lifelong fascination followed, regularly visiting museums from Berlin to New York, and Turin to Cairo and Luxor.
Pictures
OVERLEAF
Lot 250 French School, late 18th century ‘Coupe sur la Largeur d’un Dock’ (Cut across the width of a Dock) watercolour, pen and ink, 36 x 30cm £700-1,000
CLOCKWISE
Lot 238 James Earl (Massachusetts 1761-1796)
Portrait of Mr Janner Aged 41 oil on canvas, 35.5 x 30.5cm £2,000-4,000
Lot 233 Tracey Emin (b. 1963), ‘I’ve got it all, 2000/3/3 polaroid photograph, 8.8 x 10.7cm £400-600
Lot 241 Jane Bown (1925-2014) Samuel Beckett silver gelatin print, 26 x 37cm £200-300
Lot 228 Peter Beard (American, 1938-2020) Crocodile Hatchlings, Alia Bay, Lake Rudolf for Eyelids of Morning, 1965
polaroid, 11 x 13.5cm £3,000-4,000
Jan spent hours, days, and weeks travelling to and visiting museums across Europe, in search of paintings and sculpture to view, admire, and research, and on many occasions view again later in life.
Food & Drink
OVERLEAF
Lot 263 A collection of 18th and 19th century cookery manuscripts £500-1,000
CLOCKWISE
Lot 269 A large Victorian steel meat cleaver, 46cm long £100-200
Lot 288 One bottle of Chateau d’Yquem, Sauternes £200-300
Lot 268 Two Victorian copper jelly moulds, larger 8cm high £150-300
Lot 276 Twelve bottles of Chateau Duhart-Milon, Pauillac, 2007 £400-600
A perfect ‘nose’, combined with an educated taste and palate, Jan was a huge fan of fine wine and hours were spent searching out vineyards and cellars to buy at source.
Garden
OVERLEAF
Lot 312 Twenty-nine terracotta pots £300-400
CLOCKWISE
Lot 314 A pair of iron and glass lantern cloches, 41cm high £200-400
Lot 292 A teak garden seat in the manner of Sir Edwin Lutyens, 134cm wide £100-200
Lot 316 A composition model of a recumbent lurcher, 130cm long £100-150
Lot 319 A Gothic style wrought iron garden seat, 103cm wide £100-200
There were few pastimes that distracted Jan away from antiques, however, gardening, horse racing, and cooking were her chosen few, which she mastered impeccably.
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