One man’s collection, a testimony to his lifelong quest for the unique, the whimsical and the sublime is to be sold at Sotheby’s, London on 5 – 6 March 2014. The late Stanley Seeger (1930 – 2011) was one of the great collectors of our time; the guardian of beautifully quirky items and profound works of art and craft, that span 250 million years of history. Amongst the wildly diverse assortment of curiosities in 1000 Ways of Seeing is an eclectic variety of carpets and textiles.
ESFAHAN COMPOSITE RUG, CENTRAL PERSIA, MID 17TH CENTURYwool pile, pieced, now approximately: 181 by 166cm., 5ft 11in by 5ft 5in.Estimate £2,000 - 4,000
LAKAI SUZANI, UZBEKISTAN, LATE 19TH CENTURYpolychrome silk embroidery on silk ground, 345 by 264cm., 11ft 4in by 8ft 8in.Estimate £2,000 - 4,000
COVERSHAHRIYSABZ EMBROIDERED COVER, UZBEKISTAN, SECOND HALF 19TH CENTURYpolychrome silk needlework on cotton ground, ikat lining, 282 by 198cm., 9ft 3in by 6ft 6in.Estimate £1,000 - 1,500
With an independent confidence in his own impeccable taste he went about his collecting with a private enthusiasm; described as a ‘pure collector’ by David Nash (who handled the 1993 sale of Seeger’s 88 Picasso paintings at Sotheby’s, New York), he did not amass his collections with investment in mind. Sir Hugh Casson wrote of his regard of “the chic as a badge of insecurity and the conventional as a sign of surrender”. It is reported that upon his purchase of an unremarkable Picasso painting he explained that “it was so bad, it needed to be taken out of circulation”
TIGER RUG, TIBET, FIRST QUARTER 20TH CENTURYwool pile, approximately: 165 by 105cm., 65 by 41in.Estimate £2,000 - 3,000
Extending into some 75 collecting categories, the 1000 lots will be offered in chronological order, curated into 12 thematic ‘chapters’ beginning with a consignment of 250 million-year-old fossilised trees. Traversing such wildly various and enchanting items as Al Capone’s cocktail shaker, Lord Nelson’s teapot and Orson Welles’ script for Citizen Kane.
