For sale, the £250k china trove kept in a terrace house
JUDITH Howard’s passion for 18th century French ceramics saw her walls, shelves and display cabinets adorned with hundreds of plates, dishes and bowls.
Now the lifetime’s collection of Sevres porcelain that filled ‘every nook and cranny’ of her modest home is expected to sell for £250,000.
Mrs Howard, who died last year aged 73, was well known for her eye for a bargain – so much so that a cracked 250-year-old plate she bought for £13 at an antiques shop is now tipped to sell for £25,000.
The plate was once part of a 1,735-piece dinner service made for Louis XV and housed in the Palace of Versailles.
Mrs Howard, a former curator at the V&A museum in London, acquired most of her porcelain from dealers and antique shops, although she took to buying on eBay in her later years, when she was less mobile.
Her daughter Charlotte Howard described her mother’s approach to interior design as ‘maximalist’, ensuring every bit of wall space in her end-of-terrace home in Melksham, Wiltshire, was filled.
Miss Howard said: ‘She didn’t have a lot of money or a massive budget sense gems among when but it she the came did dross. to have finding a sixth the
‘ She was a magnet for rare antiques where you would least expect to find them. Shopping was her greatest passion. She bought some awful things but she didn’t care if she liked it. And she also found some treasures.
‘She used to dust once a year and we would all have to leave the house for the whole day. She hated that chore but it had to be done.’ Mrs Howard’s husband Alvin and Miss Howard have decided to sell the hoard at Woolley and Wallis Auctioneers of Salisbury. The company’s ceramics expert Clare Durham said: ‘It must be one of the best private collections of Sevres in the UK.’ Among the other highlights in the collection is a 1770 plate decorated with flowers and ivy and made for Madame du Barry, the last mistress of Louis XV, which is expected to sell for £8,000. A 2in tall ice cream cup also from the Madame du Barry service is valued at £3,500, while a Sevres plate given by Louis XVI to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1785 is expected to fetch £3,000. The auction will be held next Tuesday, February 4.