MEMORABLE PICTURE SALE

Otago Witness, Issue 3618, 17 July 1923, Page 16

MEMORABLE PICTURE SALE

SIR J. ROBINSON’S COLLECTION

LONDON, July 8,

In connection with the sale of Sir Joseph Robinson’s pictures, he stored them in 1912, and did not see them again till they were ranged on the walls of Christie’s for sale. Using a wheeled chair, he went round the gallery, and was so struck with their beauty that he felt he could not part with them, and decided to retain the best.

Connoisseurs from all parts of Europe and America crowded the rooms, and were unaware that many successful bids were from agents acting on Sir Joseph Robinson's behalf. * Mr Khoedler, of New York, secured most of the pictures. All the pictures showed big advances on the prices paid by Sir Joseph Robinson. A pathetic feature of the sale was the numbers of well-known aristocratic families who attended the sale in order to get a glimpse of pictures once family possessions. Some women were overheard saying: “We can remember that. It was in our house when we were girls.” After the sale Sir Joseph Robinson said to a Sunday Express representative: “I have big intentions for the balance of my pictures, which number 170, and which are worth several millions. I intend to lease a gallery and let the public see them. Under certain legal entailments, long since drawn up, they will pass to my heirs. In the mellow light of Christie’s they looked so beautiful that I could not part with them.”