MEMORIES OF ANOTHER PASSAGE TO INDIA
Reporting on the upcoming auction of the 350 odd collectibles belonging to second Countess Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten and Lord John Knatchbull Brabourne’s estate that is being brought under the hammer at Sotheby’s this March 2021.
We take a glimpse into the historic world of the second Countess Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten (1924-2017), the eldest daughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten – the last Viceroy of India, whose 350 personal items spanning Jewellery, Furniture, Paintings, Sculpture, Books, Silver, Ceramics and Objets d’Art, shall be going up for auction at Sotheby’s London on the 24th of March 2021. A diamond bracelet and jewelled decorative elephants from Jaipur are some of the Indian heirlooms that will be a part of the auction. The history and story behind the auction are fascinating, for it talks about the coming together of two legendary British families in the East, the Mountbattens and the Brabournes.
Nineteen is that perfect age to fall in love, since one is at the threshold of leaving behind one’s adolescence and becoming an adult. Imagine the epic scale of the romance back then in 1943 when at this tender age Lady Patricia Mountbatten, entered the Women’s Royal Navy Service and subsequently fell in love with, John Knatchbull, 7th Lord Brabourne (1924-2005) a handsome young Captain in the armed forces, who had served with her father.
It was that glorified and tormented ‘Passage to India’ that has been celebrated in novels and cinema, that the couple lived out and the Objets d’Art bring it all alive with their timeless beauty. Incidentally her husband, Lord Brabourne was an Academy-Award nominated film producer, behind titles such as A Passage to India and Agatha Christie adaptations Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express.
The Mountbatten- Brabourne wedding at Romsey Abbey in 1946 was witnessed by thousands, with members of the public lining the streets. The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated over a ceremony which saw the King and Queen in attendance, the Royal princesses Elizabeth and Margaret among the bridesmaids and Prince Philip as an usher.
The items are from Newhouse, Patricia Mountbatten and John Brabourne’s charming eighteenth-century home, Mersham le Hatch, an elegant house by Robert Adam in the Kent countryside, where the Knatchbull family had settled in the 15th century. Furnished by the great Thomas Chippendale in the 1770s, will be offered for sale with estimates ranging from £80 – 100,000.
Harry Dalmeny, Sotheby’s Chairman, UK & Ireland observes: “Lady Mountbatten’s residence, Newhouse was a private place for entertaining only the closest of family and friends, capturing all the magic of a stately home on an intimate scale. Through her belongings, many passed down from members of the extended family over the years, collectors have the chance to see the story of the twentieth century unfold and acquire evocative vestiges of a glittering way of life.”
Lady Mountbatten’s family (comprising eight children) has gone on record to say: “Our overriding desire when organising our mother’s affairs is to honour her wishes and celebrate the memory of both our mother and our father. They have discussed these arrangements with us, and we are simply putting their plans into effect. We are of course keeping many things and importantly amongst these are objects which are of sentimental value and much loved.”
Patricia Mountbatten had a stunning lineage that could intimidate any suitor for she was born into a dazzling dynasty of royal and political relations. She was the 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, great niece of Russia’s last Tsarina, first cousin to Prince Philip and the daughter of Britain’s last Viceroy of India. Over her eminent life at the very heart of Britain’s cultural establishment, she is known and remembered for her “unwavering perseverance and beguiling sense of humour”.
It is said that she had an unconventional upbringing, from weekend parties with King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at her parents’ estate in Hampshire to evacuation on the eve of the ‘Blitz’ to stay with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III in her palatial Fifth Avenue apartment in New York. Over the course of her life, Lady Mountbatten was the patron of over one hundred charities. She dealt with her own tragedies with extraordinary courage and grace and passed this on in lending her support to those in need.
Through each lot, viewers and visitors will have the opportunity to enter the world of an important family through the art and objects that they lived with, crossing the paths of the twentieth century’s leading figures along the way.
Inscribed in Lord Mountbatten’s handwriting; ‘Edwina from Dickie’ and ‘18 July 1946’, these gold enamel elephants made in Jaipur were a gift from Lord Mountbatten to his wife Edwina commemorating their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. When they had become engaged at Viceroy’s House in 1922, the Vicereine Lady Reading had written apologetically to Edwina’s father ‘I hoped she would have cared for someone older, with more of a career before him’.
A “Tutti Frutti” style set of jewels in the collection, valued between 40,000 pounds and 60,000 pounds, belonged to Edwina Mountbatten, who is said to have had a particular penchant for this style that took inspiration from Indian cut-coloured gems. The auction also includes a lot made up of a rare Anglo-Indian inlaid bureau by Thomas Chippendale, made in 1767 and passed down through the Knatchbull family, also valued between 40,000 pounds and 60,000 pounds.
One can attend the auction online and if in England attend the Public Exhibition from 20 – 23 March
Text by Georgina Maddox
Images courtesy: Sotheby’s Auction House London and Newhouse PR
