Painting with Darwin link smashes guide price at Shropshire auction
An 18th century portrait of a relation of the sea captain who took Charles Darwin on his voyage to the Galapagos Islands smashed its guide price when it went under the hammer in Shropshire.
The painting of Isabella Bennet FitzRoy, Countess of Arlington, sold for £2,300 at Halls' auction in Shrewsbury yesterday – well beyond its guide price between £600 and £800.
Among the other interesting items to go on sale was a silver salver linked to Sir Winston Churchill, which has a guide price of £500 to £700 and sold for £550.
Jeremy Lamond, Halls' fine art director, said: "It was a very lively room with lots of bidding and prices beyond our expectations.
"I am not sure if people are buying strongly before the election because they are not quite sure what is going to happen or if it was down to the strength of the lots.
"The salver was bought by someone from Bournemouth and made what we thought.
"The painting was bought by the Surrey Picture Trade and we were surprised by the result. It was a good result."
The life of Isabella was equally as exciting as that of her relation, Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy, who lived 200 years later and captained HMS Beagle.
Isabella, the Countess of Arlington, lived from 1668 to 1723 and, aged just four, was married to Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston and later Duke of Grafton, the nine-year-old illegitimate son of King Charles II.
The wedding ceremony was repeated in 1679 and they had one son, Charles FitzRoy, the 2nd Duke of Grafton.
Isabella was also one of the Hampton Court Beauties painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller for Queen Mary II and she walked at the coronation of Queen Anne.
After her first husband's death in 1690 while leading the forces of William of Orange at the storming of Cork, Isabella remarried in 1698 to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 4th Baronet and Speaker of The House of Commons from 1714 to 1715.
Sir Thomas was an early editor of the works of William Shakespeare and a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital, a charity set up for London's abandoned children in 1739.
Meanwhile, the engraved salver, which is accompanied by a signed note signed by Britain's famous wartime Prime Minister, was presented in 1963 to P W Cox, retiring manager of Churchill's Chartwell estate near Westerham, Kent.
The note states: "With all good wishes Winston Churchill."
The salver, which is hallmarked Carrington and Co, London 1961, is 31cms in diameter, and weighs 28 ounces.
