Victoria Pottery 'VPC' Majolica Plate English, circa 1875

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Victoria Pottery 'VPC' Majolica Plate English, circa 1875

About the Item

Victoria Pottery (VPC) Majolica plate 8.75-ins, English, circa 1875, with simulated bamboo edging, colorful bamboo shoots, on a vivid turquoise basket-weave ground. VPC painted pattern mark 'M110' to reverse. Provenance: From the Estate of Mrs. John Hay Whitney, Sotheby's New York, April 22-25, 1999, Sale number 7293, Lot number 956 (color illustration p. 369). For over 28 years we have been among the Nation’s preeminent specialists in fine antique majolica. Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney (1908-1999), the widow of John Hay "Jock" Whitney and the first wife of James Roosevelt II, the eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was one of the three glamorous Cushing sisters of Boston. Married at twenty-two, she was FDR's clear favorite during the White House years, where she often stood in as a highly competent, enthusiastic and poised Hostess, a job which the first lady deplored. Betsey’s social-climbing mother preened her three daughters from birth to make socially and financially advantageous marriages. And that they did. Her elder sister, Mary (Minnie), married Vincent Astor, and her younger sister, Barbara, whom they called 'Babe' form a young age, married Standard Oil heir, Stanley Mortimer, Jr., and after divorcing him, married William S. Paley, founder of the CBS television network (Babe Paley). These glittering doyennes of New York and international society defined taste, what was in and what wasn't, for thirty years. After divorcing James Roosevelt in 1940, Betsey married Jock Whitney on March 1, 1942 in an informal family-only ceremony held at her mother’s New York apartment on East 86th Street. She was 33 and he was 37. She had two young daughters, Sara and Kate; he had no children from his previous marriage. As one of the wealthiest men in the world throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Jock achieved his great fortune through equal parts inheritance, business acumen and flat-out good luck. His concerns were as vast and varied as they are interesting; for example, in 1933 he acquired a 15% interest in Technicolor Corporation, and in 1942 when David O. Selznick liquidated his company for tax reasons, and sold his share in gone with the wind to his business partner, Jock Whitney, for $500,000, who in turn sold it on to MGM for $2.8 million, so that the studio owned the film outright. In 1946, he founded J.H. Whitney & Company, the oldest venture capital firm in the U.S. In 1949, after eight years of marriage, he adopted Betsey’s two daughters from her previous marriage to James Roosevelt and the girls’ names were changed to Whitney. Jock was appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower as Ambassador to Great Britain and the couple moved to London in 1957 for four years, taking with them some 150 of their favorite paintings, all of them masterpieces. Since their marriage in 1942, the couple had set about collecting scores of nearly priceless paintings and other significant works decorative art, the finest antique furniture, tapestries, porcelains, ceramics, and Majolica. During their tenure in London, both Ambassador and Mrs. Whitney became close to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, who, in a departure from the usual procedure, addressed them by their first names. After Betsey Whitney’s death in 1999, their collections were consigned to Sotheby’s New York. Items were removed directly from their many homes, a quadruplex at Beekman Place in New York, a London townhouse in St. James's, a country house at Ascot, and homes in Saratoga Springs, NY, Augusta, GA, Thomasville, GA and their chief residence, Greentree, the 700-ACRE Manhasset estate on the North Shore of Long Island. This enormous collection made up a series of several high-profile sales at Sotheby's, beginning with this one in 1999 to 2004. Many of the works set new records and a famous highlight was Picasso's 'Garçon à la Pipe’ (Boy with a Pipe), the first painting in history to sell for over $100 million ($104,000,000 USD) at auction. Most significantly, however, is this singular distinction: these Sotheby's auctions of the Whitney Estate hold the record as the most important and expensive single-owner collection in world auction history. This achievement does not account for the many millions of dollars-worth of fine and decorative art that the Whitneys donated to various charities and museums. The sheer magnitude and value of their collections, it is often said, can never be replicated by a single owner. The collections so passionately and aggressively amassed by the Whitneys represent the end of an era; they were the last of the world’s Great Collectors. Robert D. Ruggles, MFA, PhD. Gilded Age Antiques, LLC For further reading see: David Grafton, The Sisters: Babe Mortimer Paley, Betsey Roosevelt Whitney, Minnie Astor Fosburgh: The Lives and Times of the Fabulous Cushing Sisters, New York: Villard Books Publishers, 1992.

Creator:
Victoria Pottery Company (Maker)
Dimensions:
Height: 1 in (2.54 cm)Diameter: 8.75 in (22.23 cm)
Style:
Victorian (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Majolica,Molded
Place of Origin:
England
Period:
1870-1879
Date of Manufacture:
1875
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Slight localized wear to high points on one bamboo shoot, and center with minute glaze loss. In excellent antique condition, with no damage, repairs or restoration. A stunning example of this rare form.
Seller Location:
Banner Elk, NC
Reference Number:
Seller: LB707YEET1stDibs: LU1302217934082