The Property of The Late Edward Grosvenor Paine
Sold by Order of the Exectors
Edward Grosvenor Paine was born in Louisiana in 1911. His first ambition was to be a portrait painter but with his talent for design and fashion, he went to Paris for three years as an apprentice to the leading milliners Agnés and Susy. A great raconteur, one of his favourite memories was his visit to Marlene Dietrich. As he had designed many of the hats the actress had chosen, he was allowed to accompany Madame to a fitting at the Crillon Hotel where they found the celebrity clad only in a pair of mules. 'Darlings' she declared 'I always try my hats on like this'. During three years in London he was spotted by Hattie Carnegie with whom he retuned to the United States before setting up on his own, when he numbered amongst his clients the Duchess of Windsor, Lilian Gish and Bette Davis, as well as Dietrich.
The son of a jeweller, Edward had always shown an interest in antiques and encouraged by the husband of a client, he became a dealer in the late 1950's. He specialised in porcelain and bibelots as well as portrait miniatures that were to become the passion of his life. He travelled from state to state exhibiting at the antique fairs and came to London for two or three months every year. Meanwhile his father had inherited Primrose Plantation near Oxford, Mississipppi, where Grosvenor Paine moved to be closer to his mother. When she died in the late 1970s, he bought a flat in the historical buildings on Jackson Square, New Orleans.
His love of portrait miniatures and the thrill of the chase of exciting new discoveries for both his trade and private collection, led him across the Atlantic to Munich, Paris and London where he bought a flat and spent part of each summer. A great Anglophile, Edward Grosvenor Paine was a well respected connoisseur whose breadth of knowledge spanned both the English, Continental and American traditions of this jewel-like art. Until his death, Grosvenor Paine was working on a dictionary of American miniature painters.
A quantity of fitted leather cases for portrait miniatures
Details
A quantity of fitted leather cases for portrait miniatures
various shapes and sizes, the majority ovals
various shapes and sizes, the majority ovals