"But where is it for?"

George Hayburn and I exchanged regular emails, often sharing images of works of art that came up for sale and attracted our attention. George worked hard as a music teacher at City of London School for over 40 years, but he did not own a television or look at it on his laptop. Instead, in the time that was not spent meeting friends or attending concerts, he read catalogues of auction houses. He shopped avidly and filled his sitting room with too many chairs (around 20), including bergères, fauteuils and a duchesse brisée, plinths, sconces, mirrors and decorative objects in bronze, glass (some 12 decanters), china and vermeil. He delighted in eighteenth century ornament, preferring the curly-swirly forms of baroque and rococo, rather than the neo-classical. Like Tom Sawyer, who finds a chest full of gold coins, ‘He could stand a lot of gilt’. His last flat in Dundee Wharf was in a gated development by Piers Gough which, in compensation for comparatively low ceilings, offered ever-changing views of the Thames ahead and, on one side, to an inlet favoured by swans.

Every time a ‘must have’ (as Howard Hodgkin put it) appeared on our computer screens we asked one another that same question, “But where’s it for?”. Howard appreciated George’s substance and his style, and gave him a marble relief that he had admired. George bought chairs at my sale of Howard’s chattels at Sotheby’s in 2017. George cared about provenance and for major artists, such as Fragonard, George Richmond, De Loutherbourg and Jospeh Chinard, but he also fell in love with works that could not be attributed to any particular name. He responded wholeheartedly to portraits when the individual presence emerged from obscurity, perhaps in the same way he responded to people: he was wonderful company, a great host and his funeral was crowded with friends, school colleagues, ex-pupils and, notably, their parents. Word got round at the school gates, as parents compared notes. ‘Of course, I’m happy that my Deirdre, Clive or Marcus reached grade 7, but most of all, their lessons seemed to improve them.’ George had a moral impact on his pupils; he got them to sit up, to breathe properly, to behave better – even if they did not practise between lessons. He used to give private lessons on cello or piano in his flat and noted that parents who tarried on the doorstep were intrigued to see a version of Versailles in Kentish Town or E14…

We soon found a response to that question of where a new purchase might go. Neither of us owned a place in the country, but surely we would, so it was clearly a good idea, practical and ergonomic, to have assembled some essential items to furnish it.

‘It’s for Norfolk.’

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This is a timed online auction, ending on Thursday 5 November, from 10.30am GMT.

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Viewing in Newbury (The Collection of George Hayburn only) see below: