The Collection of Mr and Mrs Francis Anthony Brinsley Valentine

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Through his mother, Lady Freda Valentine (née Butler), Francis 'Jimmy' Valentine was a descendant of Henry Cavendish Butler, the 8th Earl of Lanesborough (1868-1950). The title had been created in 1756 for Humphrey Butler, formerly 2nd Viscount Lanesborough, whose family had established political and landed interests in Ireland during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The Butler family retained the Earldom of Lanesborough in the Peerage of Ireland until the extinction of the title in 1998. The early Earls of Lanesborough were prominent figures in Irish Georgian public life, serving as Members of Parliament and High Sheriffs, and, in the case of Humphrey Butler, 1st Earl of Lanesborough, presiding over the Irish House of Lords during the illness of the Lord Chancellor. Both the first and second earls were also closely involved in the early organisation of Irish Freemasonry, holding senior office within the Grand Lodge of Ireland, while Humphrey Butler additionally played a role in reforming institutions such as the Dublin Society and the Linen Board for Connaught. Through these positions, the family became firmly embedded within the political, social and economic administration of Enlightenment-era Ireland.

^{A Queen Anne black-and-gilt japanned cabinet-on-stand, early 18th century (£3,000-5,000)}

From the early nineteenth century, the principal English seat of the Lanesborough family was Swithland Hall, a grand neoclassical house built for George John Danvers-Butler (1794-1866), later 5th Earl of Lanesborough, to designs by Sir James Pennethorne. Constructed between 1834 and 1852, the house replaced an earlier residence on the estate. In his History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest (1842), T R Potter described the former house as 'a considerable pile', though 'so surrounded on all sides, even in front, by stables, dovecotes and high walls, and so close to the public road' that the proprietor had 'judiciously pulled it down, and erected on higher ground a mansion more suited to the taste of the age'. The resulting house, dramatically positioned within the Leicestershire landscape, reflected both the confidence and cultivated taste of the Victorian aristocracy.

^{Two George VI bleached beech Coronation chairs and a stool, 1937, by Hands & Sons Ltd. (£500-700)}

Swithland Hall remained in family ownership into the mid-twentieth century, though furnishings and works of art from the Lanesborough collections were gradually dispersed over the course of the century, most notably in the Christie's sale 'The Remaining Contents of Swithland Hall', held on 16-17 October 1978. In that same year, Francis Valentine married the Hon. Janet Sibella Weir, daughter of James Kenneth Weir, 2nd Viscount Weir. The Weir title had been created in 1938 for William Douglas Weir, whose career was closely associated with heavy engineering, shipbuilding and aircraft production during the first half of the twentieth century. He held several official positions during the First World War and later occupied senior governmental and advisory roles, reflecting the family's close ties to British industrial and economic policy. The family seat was Montgreenan House, an historic Ayrshire estate associated with the family during the twentieth century. Following their marriage, Francis and Janet Valentine divided their time between King's Sutton, Oxfordshire, and Chelsea, London.

^{A George II carved giltwood side table in the manner of William Kent, circa 1735, possibly Irish (£30,000-50,000)}

Three lots from the following selection appeared in another Christie’s sale on behalf of the executors of the 7th Earl of Lanesborough much earlier in July 1932. Removed from Swithland Hall, a George II giltwood side table ‘designed in the manner of William Kent’ (lot 9), a Queen Anne lacquer cabinet-on-stand (lot 1), and a Louis XV kingwood and tulipwood commode by Jean-Charles Ellaume (French, 1714-1763) (lot 25) were presumably purchased in the sale by the 8th Earl, and then passed thence by descent to Lady Freda.

^{Jean-Charles Ellaume (French, 1714-1763), a Louis XV kingwood and tulipwood commode, mid-18th century, French (£2,000-4,000)}

The present offering stands as a coherent expression of aristocratic and later domestic taste, drawing together strands of inheritance, residence and collecting, across two intertwined family histories.

Tuesday 23 & Wednesday 24 June | 10am

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