In 1995 a man called Pierre founded a website call AuctionWeb. 25 years later this site – now called eBay – is a more familiar household name around the world than 250-year-old Christie’s or, even older, Sotheby’s. Knebworth House has found some fine storied treasures on eBay over the years. I recall in 2003 using it to put together a display of objects associated with Edward Bulwer Lytton for his bicentenary celebrations. I found comics based on his novels, music manuscripts of songs using his poetry, even a little ornamental silver chair with his name engraved on it, part of a set honouring writers. The display is still in his study.
Last month his namesake, my son Edward, made an interesting discovery on eBay. He spotted a silver tureen with a double ‘L’ and a coronet that he thought looked familiar. It took us a while to identify where we had seen it before. It was in the detail of a photograph of Edward Bulwer Lytton’s son Robert, when he was Viceroy of India, on the costumes of his attendants. The coronet in the design is a Baron’s coronet, not an Earl’s coronet, which Robert (only recently ‘Lord Lytton’, on the death of his father) became by virtue of that high profile job. Robert was a baron for only 8 years. This explains why the ‘LL’ Baron insignia is not particularly familiar to us today. It also matches the 1870s date of the tureen to that specific moment in Lytton family history. It now becomes a Knebworth House story – not as a tureen – but as a rare and unexpected find on eBay! Thanks Pierre!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH
