Featured in our next two Homes & Interiors sales (18-19 September and 8 October) are pieces from an exceptional private collection of Georgian shoe buckles. Inherited from the vendor’s parents (some even from their grandparents) they were acquired over a prolonged period since the 1950s.
13 September 2024
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Based in East Yorkshire, the local antique shops were particularly popular hunting grounds for the family collection, supplemented by occasional visits to and Portobello Road in London. Some of the more recently acquired pieces were purchased through eBay.
The vendor says her father chose to collect buckles as it was a niche area and an affordable hobby for a young family. Many were purchased in the 50s and 60s when a typical George II bright-cut silver buckle traded for around £2. Easily displayed in the drawers of a Georgian cabinet, fellow collectors would frequently visit to inspect and discuss recent acquisitions.
The collection, that totals a remarkable around 1100 individual buckles, will be sold in two tranches. The first half (55 lots) will be offered as part of the September 19 Homes & Interiors auction with a further sale of a similar size on October 8.
Most lots will carry estimates of £50-200 and offer two or three pairs of Georgian silver buckles by a range of specialist London and Sheffield buckle makers such as Charles Hougham, John Lambe, William Turton and Samuel Hatton and Thomas Farren.
Highlights include several pairs of buckles by William Eley of Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell Green, a silver small worker and buckle maker whose patent buckle of 1784 with a distinctive double chape (pin) marked an important and briefly popular modification.
There are pairs by William Yardley, purveyor of swords, spurs and buckles to the gentry, who in 1770 had lent his son-in-law a few hundred pounds to rescue his struggling soap business. It became one of the world's oldest and largest cosmetics firms.
Metal shoe buckles began to replace tied shoes in the 17th century and remained popular until the end of the 18th century. In 1791, as the fashion waned, buckle manufactures made an appeal to the then Prince of Wales to insist that buckles be required at court.
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