The Duke of Northumberland is selling some art to pay for repairs after floods in 2012:

Later this year, in a series of sales in London, Sotheby’s will offer property from the celebrated collections formed by the Dukes of Northumberland. From their historic homes at Alnwick Castle and Syon House, the items to be sold span a wide range of periods and media from Roman sculpture to Old Masters and rare books and manuscripts, as well as works of art from Europe, South East Asia and the Islamic world.  Together, the 80 or so lots to be sold by the Trustees of the Northumberland Estates carry a combined estimate in excess of £15 million.

The Duke of Northumberland commented: “The Newburn floods were unexpected and momentous, and our overriding responsibility was to help those affected. The costs involved in repairing the damaged culvert in Newburn have now been settled, but largely from funds that were destined for maintenance of our historic buildings and projects intended to safeguard the future of the Estates. It is to replenish these funds that these Sotheby’s sales have been conceived. While each of the pieces to be sold is of great intrinsic interest, they have been carefully chosen so as not to detract from the overall integrity of the Northumberland Collection.”

Highlights from the sales include:

• ·         a supreme marble statue of Aphrodite, circa 41-54 A.D,. (est. £4-6 million)

• ·         a marble topped commode by William Kent, one of Britain’s greatest architects and designers, dating from around 1740 (est. £800,000-1.2 million).

• ·         Jan Brueghel the Elder’s The Garden of Eden – dated 1613 and painted on copper (est. £2-3 million).

• ·         A leaf of a diptych depicting episodes from the lives of the Virgin Mary and other saints by Giovanni da Rimini, circa 1300-05 (est. £2-3 million).

• ·         The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, the first book ever to be printed in the English language. Printedcirca 1473-74 in Flanders, this is the very first production from the printing shop of William Caxton, the father of English printing (est. £600,000-800,000).

• ·         Two letters signed by Queen Elizabeth I, neither of which has any known connection to the Percy family. One of these letters, written to Viscount Hereford, one of the Queen’s most loyal servants in northern England, orders the removal of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the safety of Coventry at the outbreak of the Northern uprising in 1569 (est. £18,000-22,000). This rebellion aimed to place Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, on the English throne.

• ·         An important copy of Edward William Lane’s monumental Arabic-English Lexicon (est. £200,000-300,000).