$21,000
Estimate: $1,500 - $2,500
The Collection of Amb. & Mrs. Alexander Weddell - The Virginia House Museum
Auction: April 10, 2019 11:00:00 AM EDT
Provenance: Some acquired in Caen, France, 1930.
Some acquired in Granada, Spain, 1941.
The Collection of Ambassador and Mrs. Alexander Weddell, Richmond, Virginia.
Deaccessioned by The Virginia House Museum to benefit future preservation, acquisitions, and care of collections.
The Weddells' love for Gothic and Renaissance architecture is plainly exhibited in the structure of Virginia House. While they sought elements that could be repurposed in their construction of the house, some pieces were never used in the building or may have been acquired for their decorative use only.
Alexander tells a charming story about acquiring a set of Spanish columns in Granada, which is telling of the passionate and serendipitous nature of their collecting. Some of the columns he describes were used in the Loggia of Virginia House, and remaining fragments may be present in the offered lot:
"[We] were in the south of Spain in 1941, and while there visited warm friends in Granada--the Duque del Infantado and his family. Although already the owner of several superb palaces in various parts of Spain, the late Duque was an enthusiastic acquirer and restorer of buildings, and at the moment was carrying out a brilliant piece of work in the recently purchased house in the old Moorish capital in which [we] were being entertained. Perhaps warmed by the enthusiasm of his guests for his plans he enquired what objects were being especially sought at the moment for their beloved Virginia House and Gardens. "Columns," was V's duosyllabic reply! To this their host remarked that perhaps he had a few, then lying in a temporarily abandoned garden on his property, being the remains of an ancient colonnade formerly encircling a pool. These were accordingly examined. V was delighted with them, and shyly asked: "How does one acquire such things?" for vulgar traffic with a grandee of Spain seemed indelicate, while acceptance of these elaborate objects as a gift--which following the best Spanish tradition might be anticipated--was unthinkable. Accordingly, and following some verbal fencing, the Duque's steward was sent for, who came with inventories and figures of costs, and the delicate transaction was concluded. That very day, as it happened, certain American Red Cross trucks which had brought food supplies to Granada were returning empty to Cadiz where an American ship was lying. This happy coincidence made it possible to forward the columns promptly to the United States.
Thus it happens that these columns, similar to and contemporaneous with those in Charles V's Renaissance palace in the old Moorish Capital of Granada, found their setting in Virginia."