Graham Slater collection at Bonhams
A Modern Antiquarian: The Collection of Graham Slater, will be offered at Bonhams this April, featuring delftware that is being offered in support of Art Fund, along with early English pottery, coins, and works of art.
Highlights include a 17th-century London Delftware ‘La Fecundite’ dish, estimated at £30,000-50,000; a gold Elizabethan Coronation Crown featuring an enthroned Elizabeth I, with an estimate of £8,000-10,000, and works of art by major Modern British artists such as Patrick Heron, John Piper and Edward Bawden.
The sale will be sold in two parts: Part I will be a live auction at Bonhams New Bond Street on April 15. Part II is an online sale, which will be on view with Part I, and will end on April 16.
Graham Slater (1927-2024) began collecting aged five, when his father, an underwriter at Lloyds, gave him foreign stamps. By the age of seven, Graham had discovered Matchbox toys, before moving on to search market stalls around a London scarred by the Blitz, for prints (a favourite artist was Wencelas Hollar) and early English books.
A sojourn in Malta to improve an asthma condition inspired a taste for archaeology and geology, prompting him to delve into fossils. At one point, he discovered an unlikely taste for Indian sculpture which he shared with his equally committed wife, Rosemary. Spurred on by her, he assembled a collection which was sold, reluctantly, when a profusion of English delftware demanded far more display space at home in Cambridge.
Slater was fascinated by relics of late-medieval London, by English ecclesiastical architecture, by wooden objects and memorabilia in essentially rustic English taste. His devoted wife shared these unlikely fascinations, including his love of mudlarking, exploring the banks of the Thames for fragments washed up by each new tide. He and Rosemary focused their most valuable acquisitions into 17th and 18th -century English domestic artefacts, including delftware, decorative works of art, drinking glasses, vernacular woodwork and furniture, as well early coins. At one point the couple owned a small antique shop in Bexhill-on-Sea.
Even in his 90s, Graham still enjoyed the thrill of the chase, and the attribution of delft and early stoneware vessels to specific kilns preoccupied him for decades. He was acknowledged as a leading academic authority in English delft.
Highlights of the sale include:
- A London delftware ‘La Fecundite’ dish by the potter ‘WP’, circa 1657-59. Estimate: £30,000-50,000
- Patrick Heron (British, 1920-1999), FEBRUARY 8 1984. Estimate: £10,000-15,000
- Patrick Heron (British, 1920-1999), MINI FEBRYARY I: 1974. Estimate: £10,000-15,000
- An English medieval anthropomorphic jug, 13th century. Estimate: £8,000-12,000
- An English delftware charger, blue dash rim, circa 1714. Estimate: £7,000-10,000
- An Elizabeth I 1558-1603 coin. Estimate: £8,000-10,000
- Book of Hours, Use of Rome. Hore divine virginis Marie secundum usum Romanum, illuminates and printed on vellum. 28 lines within red and gold border, 88 leaves, 10 full-page illuminated woodcuts heightened in gold. Estimate: £5,000-8,000
Bonhams said that Graham Slater’s collection is a testament to his passion as a collector and his generous gift to Art Fund is a tribute to the charity’s work supporting the UK’s museums and galleries. Part of the Graham Slater bequest has been facilitated by the collector’s children Corinna Slater (estate executor) and son Crispin Slater in support of Art Fund.
The sale of the English Delftware Collection will support Art Fund’s work with museums across the UK, specifically its funding for museum professionals through the Expanding Horizons campaign – a major investment in expertise and development opportunities for people who bring museum collections to life, from curators to conservators, educators to exhibition-makers.
Charlie Thomas, UK Group Director for House Sales and Private & Iconic Collections, commented: “Graham was a collector in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a real scholar who surrounded himself with objects and then learnt everything there was about the objects he collected. We are delighted to be able to bring this collection to auction, especially as the sale is in support of Art Fund which will cement Graham’s amazing legacy and enable his passion for art and historic ceramics, coins and artefacts to be nurtured in others.”