.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The Balfour of Whittinghame
James Balfour was the son of John Balfour (1738-1863) of Balbirnie and his wife Ellen, daughter of James Gordon of Ellon. His elder brother General Robert Balfour (1762-1837) succeeded their father. James travelled to India where he made a fortune. He returned to his native Scotland buying the Whittinghame estate in 1817. Balfour employed James Dorward of Haddington, to construct a new neo-classical house following the designs of Sir Robert Smirke (1780-1867). The house was later enlarged and altered some ten years later by William Burn (1789-1870). James Balfour married Lady Eleanor Maitland, the daughter of the Earl of Lauderdale and their son James Maitland Balfour (1820-1856) succeeded to the estates. James Maitland was the father of Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), who led a distinguished political life, becoming Prime Minister from 1902 until 1905, later serving as First Lord of the Admiralty and Foreign Secretary. He was created an Earl in 1922 and was given both the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit by the monarch. Following his death in 1930 his executors were faced with sizable debts. The sale of the magnificent Balfour dinner service by Paul Storr, which amounted to over 7,000 ounces took place and the much of the contents of Whittinghame were sold in Edinburgh in 1938.
The Warwick Vase
The Warwick Vase is a colossal marble vase measuring nearly six feet high, which dates from the 2nd century A.D. It was found in fragments in 1770 at the bottom of a lake at Hadrian's Villa near Rome by a group of Englishmen and was acquired by Sir William Hamilton, at the time Ambassador to Naples. Hamilton in turn sold it, now restored, to his kinsman, Charles Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, who set it up in the grounds of Warwick Castle. The vase had been engraved by Piranesi in 1778, and these prints provided the inspiration for versions of the vase in silver and silver-gilt during the Regency period.
Of his marble vase, the Earl of Warwick wrote 'I built a noble greenhouse, and . . . placed in it a Vase, considered as the finest remains of Grecian art extant for size and beauty.' The vase, however, did have one critic. The Hon. John Byng, later 5th Viscount Torrington and author of a series of fascinating and at times irascible journals of his rides through England, spoke thus of the Roman monument when describing his visit to Warwick Castle: 'The upper court is environed by old walls and turrets, o'erhung with ivy; the portcullis down; and nothing to disgrace the taste of antiquity, but a vulgar overgrown Roman basin in the centre of the court; which I would toss into the centre of the river, or give to the church for a font!' (C. Bruyn Andrews, ed. The Torrington Diaries, a selection from the tours of the Hon. John Byng between the years 1781 and 1794, London, 1954, p. 102).
James Balfour was the son of John Balfour (1738-1863) of Balbirnie and his wife Ellen, daughter of James Gordon of Ellon. His elder brother General Robert Balfour (1762-1837) succeeded their father. James travelled to India where he made a fortune. He returned to his native Scotland buying the Whittinghame estate in 1817. Balfour employed James Dorward of Haddington, to construct a new neo-classical house following the designs of Sir Robert Smirke (1780-1867). The house was later enlarged and altered some ten years later by William Burn (1789-1870). James Balfour married Lady Eleanor Maitland, the daughter of the Earl of Lauderdale and their son James Maitland Balfour (1820-1856) succeeded to the estates. James Maitland was the father of Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), who led a distinguished political life, becoming Prime Minister from 1902 until 1905, later serving as First Lord of the Admiralty and Foreign Secretary. He was created an Earl in 1922 and was given both the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit by the monarch. Following his death in 1930 his executors were faced with sizable debts. The sale of the magnificent Balfour dinner service by Paul Storr, which amounted to over 7,000 ounces took place and the much of the contents of Whittinghame were sold in Edinburgh in 1938.
The Warwick Vase
The Warwick Vase is a colossal marble vase measuring nearly six feet high, which dates from the 2nd century A.D. It was found in fragments in 1770 at the bottom of a lake at Hadrian's Villa near Rome by a group of Englishmen and was acquired by Sir William Hamilton, at the time Ambassador to Naples. Hamilton in turn sold it, now restored, to his kinsman, Charles Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, who set it up in the grounds of Warwick Castle. The vase had been engraved by Piranesi in 1778, and these prints provided the inspiration for versions of the vase in silver and silver-gilt during the Regency period.
Of his marble vase, the Earl of Warwick wrote 'I built a noble greenhouse, and . . . placed in it a Vase, considered as the finest remains of Grecian art extant for size and beauty.' The vase, however, did have one critic. The Hon. John Byng, later 5th Viscount Torrington and author of a series of fascinating and at times irascible journals of his rides through England, spoke thus of the Roman monument when describing his visit to Warwick Castle: 'The upper court is environed by old walls and turrets, o'erhung with ivy; the portcullis down; and nothing to disgrace the taste of antiquity, but a vulgar overgrown Roman basin in the centre of the court; which I would toss into the centre of the river, or give to the church for a font!' (C. Bruyn Andrews, ed. The Torrington Diaries, a selection from the tours of the Hon. John Byng between the years 1781 and 1794, London, 1954, p. 102).