FAMILY PORTRAITS FOUND

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 26 August 1933, Page 13

FAMILY PORTRAITS FOUND

LOST FOR FIFTY YEARS. LONDON GOLD-SMELTER’S EXPERIENCE. How two miniature portraits valued by a distinguished Spanish family wero romantically traced after being lost for fifty years was told in London lately by England’s only woman goldismelter "(states an exchange). Mrs Sonia Waldman, of Paddington, London, melts more than £2OO worth of gold every day, and this, she said, was just one of the adventures that regularly come her way. “A woman had come into my shop and sold mo the miniatures, which Averc understod to be of an unknown person,” Mrs Waldman said. “A few days later the Countess de Rodrickez, a well-known Spanish noblewoman, was glancing round 'the odds and ends here and stopped at them in amazement. ‘That is my grandmother! ’ she exclaimed as she came to the mysterious miniatures.” The portraits had been missing from her family for fifty years. “Y T ou wouldn’t think there was much romance wrapped up in this little place, but believe me, there certainly is!” said Mrs Waldman. ‘‘At the time of the gold rush I was so inundated with people anxious to sell their gold that I could not get it all melted in time. I started to melt it myself, and have been doing so ever since. ’ ’ Many choice pieces of jewellery have passed through Mrs Waldman’s hands, including many of the late Tsar’s crown jewels. Many pieces have j been so beautiful that she has not had the heart to melt them. Mrs Waldman | is one of the three principal woman iewel experts in Britain.