GERALD COKE
Gerald Coke was a Christian Scientist, tee-total and assiduous in everything he turned his hand to - characteristics one does not liberally or necessarily associate with the 'best things in life'. He was extremely good company, not the least bit 'pi' and had an infectious sense of humour. The warmth of his friendship, his scholarship and wordly wisdom simply placed him above normal mortals - and he loved the 'best things in life', which he shared with his wife Patricia.
He died in January 1990 aged 82. He was a man with a vast breadth of interest and the intellectual grasp to turn his enquiring mind to successful effect in the City and in Industry where he landed up as Chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc. This effectively gave him a power-base - and, surprisingly, time enough - to indulge his love for music, horticulture and accumulating a magnificent collection of artefacts.
He was a'Renaissance Man' - the 20th Century equivalent of a member of the Medici family. Making money is conceived by some to be base or curiously sordid. Gerry made money and was a success at doing this on his own account and for the benefit of the industrial and commercial enterprises for which he worked. But money was in his extremely civilised scheme of things a means to the better things in life from which he intended others to gain benefit as much as, if not more than, himself. Winston Churchill said: "It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider that the real vice is making losses". And John Wesley said: "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can". Gerry's philsophy embraced these two propositions.
Out of his financially shrewd dealings, he was able to create with help from scholars and, in time, through his own developed expertise, The Coke Handel Collection - the most important private accumulation of Handeliana which he left to the nation. Similarly, the collection of James Giles porcelain which he and Patricia bequeathed to The Dyson Perrins Museum in Worcester was the result of his discerning acquisitiveness.
However, the sale at Christie's on 17 October 1996 concentrates on the results of the rest of his civilised search for artefacts. Jenkyn Place, his home in Hampshire was, I remember, a treasure trove. It was a museum of Regency furniture, of porcelain, of rugs etc. But it was lived in and felt like a family home surrounded, as it was, by a garden of stunning quality which matched the contents of the house.
Gerald Coke should have been made a peer of the realm, for his business achievements, for his contribution to music - he was for 21 years Chairman of the Glyndebourne Arts Trust, a Director of the Royal Opera House and of the Royal Academy of Music, etc. - and for his distinguished zeal as an art collector which the lots now up for sale at Christie's bear witness to.
As the Auctioneer says in Stravinsky's/Auden's The Rake's Progress: "Ladies..Gentlemen: Be all welcome to this miracle of, this most wisely heralded of, this, I am sure you follow me, ne plus ultra of auctions..."
SIR GEORGE CHRISTIE
MORNING SESSION
at 10:30 a.m.
(Lots 1-183)
OBJECTS OF ART AND FURNITURE
A PAIR OF REGENCY ORMOLU, BRONZE AND WHITE MARBLE CANDLESTICKS
Details
A PAIR OF REGENCY ORMOLU, BRONZE AND WHITE MARBLE CANDLESTICKS
Each with an ovoid body with a pair of eagle-heads suspending chains, below an engine-turned nozzle and drip-pan, on a cylindrical pedestal and square plinth, with bun feet, fitted for electricity, with pleated ivory silk shade (2)
Each with an ovoid body with a pair of eagle-heads suspending chains, below an engine-turned nozzle and drip-pan, on a cylindrical pedestal and square plinth, with bun feet, fitted for electricity, with pleated ivory silk shade (2)