Pick of 1952

There was room for a smattering of other news items in the facsimile pages pubto lished by The Times mark the 70th annia versary of the death of George VI and the Accession of our present Queen. Among them was review of an exhibipainter tion at the Redfern Gallery in Cork Street, W1, by the Portuguese abstract Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–92), with ‘glacier paintings’ by Wilhelmina Barnsgraham, and a notice of saleroom results from the previous day, February 6, 1952: ‘A Louis XV oval gold snuff box (3¼in wide) by Louis Philippe Demay, Paris, 1762, with the poinçon of J. J. Prévost, brought 620 guineas (Burfitt) at Christie’s yesterday; and Messrs. Spink gave 110 guineas for another French example of oblong shape, the lid decorated with a gold imperial crown and the initial N on an oval blue enamel plaque. The day’s total was £4,666.

‘In a sale of pictures, totalling £4,580 at Sotheby’s yesterday, £500 was given by Mr Koetser for a J. van Ruisdael small panel of a winter landscape, signed with monogram; and La Jeune Cuisinière by J. B. Greuze fetched £600 (Spiller).’

Before sighing at the cheapness of such things, we must remember that £1 then was equivalent to £30.66 today; 650 guineas is thus £19,960 now and the £4,666 total equals £143,060. A similar box with the same marks and date, but mounted with a miniature of Louis XIV and listed as ‘a late-19th-century tribute snuff box’ (pictured), was sold by Sotheby’s last November for £11,340.