Matthew Barton Ltd.
Lot 25
AN EXTENSIVE FLIGHT, BARR & BARR, WORCESTER, 'JAPAN' PATTERN DINNER SERVICE, CIRCA 1813-15 richly enamelled in iron-red, green, turquoise, yellow, puce, pink and gilding with exotic birds in flowering branches, a pagoda in the distance inside gilt line rims, comprising: a soup tureen, cover and stand, 33cm wide four sauce tureens, covers and stands, tureens 19cm wide three oval vegetable tureens and one cover, 28cm wide two rectangular vegetable tureens and one cover, 24cm wide sixteen serving dishes in sizes, 25 to 49cm wide thirty-one soup plates, 24cm diameter forty-eight dessert plates, 23cm diameter and twenty-two side plates, 18cm diameter impressed BFB marks, printed Flight, Barr & Barr marks together with eleven matching dinner plates, modern, painted in twice fired enamels to match by Rachel Greenwood, 1952, numbered and intialled J.R.G., 26cm diameter Provenance: The Lady Denman, G.B.E. of Balcombe Place, Sussex; thence by family descent. The Lady Denman (1884-1954), was born Gertrude Mary Pearson, the second child and only daughter of Weetman and Annie Pearson, later Viscount and Viscountess Cowdray. Her engineer father had amassed a fortune, principally from Mexican oilfields. She attended the 1902 London season and married the Liberal peer Thomas Denman (3rd Baron Denman) in 1903. For many years she devoted much time to numerous causes, her positions including: 1917 - first President of the National Federation of Women's Institutes, - until 1946; First Chairman of the Family Planning Association; President of the Ladies Golf Union; Director of the Westminster Press; Trustee of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. On the outbreak of World War II, she was invited to become the Director of the Women's Land Army, for which she was awarded the Grand Cross of the British Empire. Her father had bought her the Balcombe Estate in Sussex in 1907, a few miles from his then home at Paddockhurst. Apart from Lord Denman's posting as Governor General of Australia (1911-1914, during which time she officially named the new capital Canberra), Lady Denman lived at the estate's mansion, Balcombe Place, in some style for the rest of her life.
